On Docs

Welcome to On Docs, our new TVO Podcast on documentaries and the stories they tell. Subscribe now for episodes that begin October 2018.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why are democracies struggling to be democratic? That's the question activist and filmmaker Astra Taylor's latest film tackles, but as she tells Colin, finding an answer is far from easy. From the birth of democracy in Greece to Donald Trump's campaign rallies, the film takes viewers on a journey to answer this burning question. Guest: Astra Taylor. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: National Film Board of Canada/nfb.caSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Filmmaker Deeyah Khan sat down with members of the white power movement in the United States to gain a better understanding of what motivates them to hate. She spoke with Colin about how she gained their confidence - and whether they have the capacity to change. Guest Deeyah Khan. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: Fuuse FilmsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The team behind Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark is back with a new film that explores the ways human activity has fundamentally changed the planet. Colin sat down with filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, and Nicholas de Pencier to discuss the massive impact we've had on the Earth. Guests: Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, and Nicholas de Pencier. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: Mercury Films Inc. in association with TVO/Anthropocene Films Inc./mongrelmedia.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colin joins director Sarah Fodey and Canadian Armed Forces veteran Patti Gray for a special screening and discussion of The Fruit Machine, a TVO original documentary that explores Canada's campaign from the 1950s until the 1980s to purge LGBTQ people from the public service. Guests: Sarah Fodey and Patti Grey. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: A TVO Original documentary produced by SandBay EntertainmentSee omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

What happens when a city can't keep the lights on? Filmmaker Shasha Nakhai tells Colin how the power grid affects life in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where half the residents have no reliable access to electricity. Guest: Shasha Nakhai. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: Storyline Entertainment/takelightfilm.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colin speaks to anthropologist Sine Plambech and filmmaker Janus Metz, who spent 10 years documenting migration marriages in Denmark between Thai women supporting families back home and Danish men looking for companionship. Are migration marriages about love, or are they a convenient arrangement? Can they be both? Guests: Sine Plambech and Janus Metz. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: Magic Hour Films and Metz Film in co-production with Upfront Films, BALDR Film, Vilda Bomben Film and Film i Väst.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You probably know someone you would call racist, but have you ever called them out? What would happen if you did? Vanessa Loewen and Stephanie Scott, the producers of First Contact, found out when they took six Canadians to Indigenous communities across the country. Guest: Vanessa Loewen and Stephanie Scott. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: First Contact Canada Inc.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colin joins acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Min Sook Lee for a special screening of her 2005 film, Hogtown: The Politics of Policing, and a conversation about the overlapping roles of activism and documentary filmmaking. Guest: Min Sook Lee. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: Min Sook Lee/National Film Board of Canada, Min Sook Lee/City State Productions Ltd., Min Sook Lee/TVO/Rogers Communications.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Social-impact bonds - which see private investors fund government pilot programs - are a fast-growing trend internationally. When filmmaker Nadine Pequeneza first heard about them, in 2014, she was excited about the investment tool that aimed to marry capitalism with social change. Four years and a documentary film later, her thinking has changed. In this episode of On Docs, she sits down with Colin Ellis to explain why. Guests: Nadine Pequeneza. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Caitlin Plummer, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: Courtesy of HitPlay Productions in association with TVO; Vince Guaraldi Trio/Fantasy Records/youtube.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2009, a documentary pointed the globe's attention to Taiji, a tiny town in coastal Japan where dolphin and whale hunting forms a major part of the fishing industry. The Cove went on to win an Oscar and inspire a new generation of anti-whaling activism. But what if the story around Japan's whaling culture isn't so black and white? Nearly a decade later, filmmaker Megumi Sasaki returned to Japan to explore the country's historical and cultural relationship with whaling and to document the effects The Cove has had on Taiji and its people. Guests: Megumi Sasaki. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Jonathan Halliwell, Nikki Ashworth, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung. Credit: Courtesy of Fine Line MediaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Awards season is here! Colin and producers Matt and Chantal discuss the five films up for best documentary feature at the 2019 Academy Awards: Free Solo, R.B.G., Minding the Gap, Of Fathers and Sons, and Hale County This Morning, This Evening. The trio talks about what made these docs compelling, where they fell short, and which one they think will take home Oscar gold. Host: Colin Ellis, Producer: Chantal Braganza, Technical Producer: Matthew O'Mara, Production Coordinator: Nikki Ashworth and Jonathan Halliwell, Podcast Manager: Hannah Sung.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colten Boushie was a 22-year-old Cree man from Red Pheasant First Nation. Gerald Stanley is the white Saskatchewan farmer who shot and killed him when Boushie and a group of friends trespassed on his property one August afternoon in 2016. That afternoon, and the second-degree murder trial that followed it, polarized the province. Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard chronicled the family's story and situates it within a larger one - colonial violence, intergenerational trauma, and intergenerational resistance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After releasing Human Flow, his 2017 documentary on the refugee crisis, artist and activist Ai Weiwei was left with 900 hours of footage - what he calls "the rest." This film wasn't just cutting-floor material. It shows the human face of what happens when war forces people to flee their homes, uprooting their families, lives, and futures. The Rest is Weiwei's second close-up at a growing crisis that he says implicates everyone across the globe: from refugees themselves, to the policymakers making it difficult for them to cross borders, to viewers just like us.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when Hollywood makes feature films from documentaries? Is there ever a time when one medium tells the story better? Colin Ellis and producers Matthew O'Mara and Chantal Braganza get together to talk about some beloved docs and the big-screen versions they inspired.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Sisto spent eight years in search of the original writer of the 1999 hit, "Who Let to the Dogs Out?" His quest is the subject of a new documentary. Host Colin Ellis spoke with Sisto about making the doc, and the answers he found.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Michael Jackson. Bill Clinton. Lorena Bobbitt. If you lived through the '90s, chances are you know these names and know the stories behind them. But do you really? Host Colin Ellis and producers Matthew O'Mara and Chantal Braganza discuss Leaving Neverland and Lorena, two series that revisit two of the biggest scandals of the decade.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Women are the fastest-growing incarcerated population, both in Canada and around the world. When filmmakers Nance Ackerman, Teresa MacInnes, and Ariella Pahlke decided to make a documentary about why, they also decided to put the camera in the hands of the incarcerated women whose stories they were telling.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Docs host Colin Ellis speaks to Michael Sladden, owner and director of Camp Pathfinder, about he decided to invite war-zone refugees to the camp and what it was like to have the project featured in a documentary.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Everyone thinks they can recognize propaganda - and that they're immune to its influence. Filmmaker Larry Weinstein's latest documentary, Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies, will make you reconsider.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.