Nine Documentaries Selected For Peabody 30

The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors revealed today nine winners in the documentary category for programs released in 2017. The honorees, part of the annual Peabody 30, include stories that give insight to the lingering grief of communities after mass shootings, the impact of climate change on Earth’s oceans, and young activists fighting for a path to citizenship. The Peabody Awards are based at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

Peabody Award winners, including Carol Burnett, recipient of the first-ever Peabody Career Achievement Award presented by Mercedes-Benz, will be celebrated on Saturday, May 19 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. Hasan Minhaj, comedian, writer and senior correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, will serve as host.

The documentary winners are:

America ReFramed: Deej              

American Documentary, Inc; WORLD Channel; Rooy Media LLC; Independent Television Service (ITVS) (WORLD Channel) — A bold step forward in inclusive filmmaking that allows David James (Deej) Savares, a nonspeaking young man with autism, to tell his own story, focusing on accomplishment and possibility, not limits and barriers.

Chasing Coral

An Exposure Labs Production in partnership with The Ocean Agency & View Into the Blue in association with Argent Pictures & The Kendeda Fund (Netflix) — This surprisingly emotional film expertly documents, through time-lapse underwater photographs, the effects of climate change on the rapid decimation of the world’s coral reefs, events known as coral bleaching that affected 29 percent of the shallow-water coral in the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 alone.

Indivisible

Fuse Media (Fuse/Linear Broadcast) — An urgent, intimate portrait of heartbreak and determination, disappointment and victory as three young Dreamers navigate confusing immigration policy, bad faith on the part of politicians, and the emotional trauma of family separation.

Last Men in Aleppo

American Documentary | POV, Larm Film (PBS) — Masterful storytelling by civilian filmmakers at the heart of the Syrian crisis as they follow the volunteer group the White Helmets, who provide emergency services to traumatized residents in the rebel-occupied areas of the city of Aleppo.

Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise    

The People’s Poet Media Group, LLC, Thirteen’s American Masters for WNET and ITVS in association with Artemis Rising (PBS/WNET/TV) — A vivid portrait of Maya Angelou, who, while best known as one of America’s leading writers, also blazed a brave and original life as a performer, actress, and activist integral to the civil rights movement and the celebration of African-American experience. 

Newtown

Mile 22 LLC, ITVS, in association with KA Snyder Productions, Cuomo Cole Productions, Artemis Rising and Transform Films (PBS) — An emotionally devastating film centered on the testimonies of the families, teachers, and first-responders of Newtown, Connecticut, who recount the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School and examine its impact on their lives, their town and, by implication, the nation that allowed this to happen.

Oklahoma City

American Experience (PBS/WGBH Education Foundation) — Essential viewing that draws a line from armed standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, to tell the story of both the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history and the rise of anti-government hatred and white militancy.

The Islands and the Whales

Intrepid Cinema, Radiator Film (PBS) — An exquisitely photographed documentary that explores the inextricable links between oceans poisoned by coal burning power plants and the direct impact they have on people of the remote Faroe Island in the North Atlantic Ocean, who struggle between maintaining their traditional way of life and the long-term health repercussions of mercury poisoning.

Time: The Kalief Browder Story  

Spike TV, The Cinemart, Roc Nation  (Spike) — Powerful miniseries illuminating the greatest flaws of our criminal justice system through the tragic events and death of a young African-American who spent three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime.