Show Notes
Zayd Ayers Dohrn is the son of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers who were leaders in the Weather Underground, known for bombing the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and other high profile targets. Zayd explores their complicated legacy in the podcast Mother Country Radicals and his new memoir Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young. Host Thom Powers interviews Zayd about what he learned. They discuss past documentary treatments in "Underground" (1976) by Emile d'Antonio and "The Weather Underground" (2002) by Sam Green and Bill Siegel. For more on this era, hear our past interviews with Bill Siegel (ep 15), on Fred Hampton (ep 132), and on Columbia 1968 (ep 185). Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices. On Instagram: @purenonfiction@thompowers1
More from Pure Nonfiction: Inside Documentary Film
Pure Nonfiction and The Ankler collaborate for a live recording of Documentary Spotlight at the Culver Theater in Los Angeles. Host Thom Powers interviews the teams behind "Seized" (director Sharon Liese, producer Sasha Alpert), "Rehearsals for a Revolution" (director Pegah Ahangarani), "The Eyes of Ghana" (producers Nana Adwoa Frimpong, Ethan Lewis), and "Bernstein's Wall" (director Douglas Tirola). Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices. On Instagram: @purenonfiction@thompowers1
Pure Nonfiction and The Ankler collaborate for a live recording of Documentary Spotlight at the Culver Theater in Los Angeles. Host Thom Powers interviews the teams behind "American Doctor" (director Poh Si Teng, participant Dr. Thaer Ahmad), "Time and Water" (director Sara Dosa), "A Fox Under a Pink Moon" (directors Mehrdad Oskouei, Soraya Akhlaghi); and "Just Look Up" (directors Betsy Hershey, Emma Wall, participant Michael Greenberg). Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices. On Instagram: @purenonfiction@thompowers1
Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney delivers the most ambitious documentary of his career in "Musk." How did one person amass so much power in Tesla, Space X, Starlink, Twitter, Grok, DOGE and more? Host Thom Powers interviewed Gibney about the challenges of investigating the world's richest man. The film is being released to U.S. theaters by Bleecker Street. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices. On Instagram: @purenonfiction@thompowers1
Fergie Chambers, the American multi-millionaire supporter of far left causes, is currently imprisoned in Spain as the U.S. Department of Justice seeks his extradition. He’s profiled in the documentary “All About the Money” that premiered at Sundance. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviewed director Sinead O’Shea in March at CPH:DOX. Sinead talked about her previous film "Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story" on episode 221. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices. On Instagram: @purenonfiction@thompowers1
"Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World" profiles the Pulitzer-winning poet who died in 2019. The filmmaker Sasha Waters describes how she shaped this biography drawing upon the memories of Oliver's friends including filmmaker John Waters, poet Mark Doty, and journalist Maria Shriver; along with contributions from Oliver's admirers such as Stephen Colbert and Oprah Winfrey. The film is being released theatrically by Kino Lorber and will be broadcast on PBS' American Masters on August 25. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices. On Instagram: @purenonfiction@thompowers1