To Catch a Predator (2004–2007), a periodic segment on the TV newsmagazine Dateline NBC, was one of the biggest nonfiction sensations of the 2000s. The new documentary Predators, recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, examines this and other ethical issues around the program. In particular, the film scrutinizes the host of copycat media operations that have arisen over the years, as well as the show’s broader influence on the true crime genre. Ahead of the premiere, we sat down with director David Osit over Zoom to discuss To Catch a Predator and its modern fan community, finding all the materials used in Predators, and the delicate balancing act involved in incorporating so much raw footage.
Online Feature
At the start of Violet Du Feng’s Sundance-debuting The Dating Game we learn that, due to the former one-child policy, China now has 30 million more men than women, an eye-catching number that presents dire implications for the country. But behind the cold facts are flesh and blood human beings—and potential clients for a dating coach named Hao. While the doc is specific to China, it’s also universal in its critique of how capitalism, consumerism, and social media collide to create a generation that assumes everyone is faking who they are and therefore concludes that they too must “fake it to make it.” A week before the film’s World Cinema Documentary Competition premiere today, Documentary reached out to Feng, whose Peabody and Emmy-nominated Hidden Letters (2022) tackled gender stereotypes from the female side. This interview has been edited.
In Ukrainian, the film is called Myrni lyudy, which literally translates as Peaceful People. It is a clever, polysemic title that simultaneously addresses Ukrainian civilians embedded in their native wounded landscapes and Russian civilians calling their loved ones who are taking part in the invasion of Ukraine. Those people on the other end of the phone are fascinated by the soldiers’ detailed stories of war crimes and trophy theft and get very upset when their interlocutors become disillusioned with Russian propaganda. First screened at Berlinale, Intercepted has travelled to numerous festivals and political venues over the past year, including at IDFA in the Best of Fests section. Documentary spoke to Oksana Karpovych before the festival.
“It’s South Africa, it’s Vietnam, it’s Jim Crow—it’s like all of these defining moments,” says filmmaker Razi Jafri by phone from East Jerusalem
In 2018, Singaporean filmmaker Jason Soo boarded the Al Awda ( The Return in Arabic) with the intention of making a documentary about the surgeon
Darius Clark Monroe has been on my radar for a decade, ever since his feature debut Evolution of a Criminal , a revisitation of the robbery the
In 2008 and 2019, in Documentary magazine, I published documentary budgeting articles and budget templates that have been read and used widely all over the world. I’m thrilled to return with a big update that includes: (1) a fully revised budget template that has been updated for 4K and streamer deliveries; (2) for the first time, a schedule template; (3) numerous new budget line items related to accessibility for film crews, participants, and audiences; and (4) a bigger reorganization to make the template more flexible and universal. The article has also been expanded and extensively rewritten.
The 2024 edition of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam opened shortly after the world learned of two changes in leadership. One was at
There is a certain spectacle to which the bullfight—or the corrida de toros , the sport’s less colloquial Spanish name—lends itself, which is at once
State restrictions in Cuba have turned independent filmmaking into a challenge, but with Chronicles of the Absurd, Miguel Coyula and Lynn Cruz show that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Coyula, the director, uses clandestine recordings of Cruz and others in encounters with authorities inside Cuba, whether when trying to hold a screening, or when asking evasive hospital staff for information about her father’s sudden decline in health. Instead of relying on video or explanatory interviews, Coyula lets the riveting audio tell the story, augmented with speakers’ avatars, text, stills of Cruz, and a little animation, plus music ranging from Cuban classical composer Ignacio Cervantes to the punk rock band Porno Para Ricardo. After its world premiere at IDFA, Chronicles of the Absurd was awarded the Best Film in the Envision Competition. Earlier in the festival, I spoke to Coyula and Cruz earlier in their first interview about the film.