Doc Talk Goes Live at HSDFF With Four Oscar Doc Contenders — SkimNews
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- Deadline's Doc Talk podcast recorded a live episode at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas, with filmmakers speaking before an audience at the Arlington Hotel in HSDFF's inaugural Oscar contenders roundtable, held in partnership with Deadline.
- Biljana Tutorov, co-director of Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner "To Hold a Mountain," revealed that she and co-director Petar Glomazić became "enemies of the state" in Montenegro while filming alongside protagonist Gara Jovanović.
- Michał Marczak, whose "Closure" won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, discussed how making the film unexpectedly helped him process postponed grief over his father's death when he was 11.
- "Once Upon a Time in Harlem" producer Liani Greaves and director David Greaves drew on 1972 footage shot by Liani's grandfather William Greaves — making it the only documentary this year to screen at Sundance, Cannes, Telluride, TIFF, and the New York Film Festival.
- "American Doctor" filmmaker Poh Si Teng addressed her filmmaking colleagues in Gaza who cannot leave the occupied territory as Palestinians continue to die from Israeli military attacks, while also recounting how one of her film's protagonists "ghosted" her during production.
- The episode is hosted by John Ridley (Oscar winner for "12 Years a Slave") and Deadline's senior documentary editor Matt Carey, produced by Deadline and Ridley's Nō Studios.
Why it matters: With critics and awards bodies beginning to announce shortlists, the HSDFF roundtable gives four of the year's most-touted documentary contenders — including a Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner and the only 2025 doc to clear five major festivals — a shared platform to reach Academy voters. The unscripted live format also surfaces candid moments, from Marczak's personal grief to Teng's on-mic solidarity with trapped Gaza filmmakers, that a standard press junket wouldn't.
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