Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
If you need to transport yourself to somewhere cooler amidst this hot summer we suggest heading to the theaters (only if you feel safe to do so) and watching Óskar Páll Sveinsson’s Against the Current. Follow the awesome Veiga Grétarsdóttir’s 103-days-long adventure as she becomes the first person in the world to attempt to kayak over 2,000 kilometers around Iceland, counter-clockwise and "against the current." This is a journey that is perhaps a little less difficult than the one Grétarsdóttir made, at 38, when she decided to undergo gender reassignment. Against the Current is being released through Kino Lorber and Zeitgeist Films.
Alan Adelson, Kate Taverna and Veronique Bernard’s The People vs. Agent Orange examines the after-effects of the use of Agent Orange, 60 years after the Vietnam War. They join French-Vietnamese activist Tran To Nga and American activist Carol Van Strum in their fight for justice and accountability for the deadly effects of chemical warfare that continue to ravage through lives even today. Watch the film on PBS.
Jackie Collins wrote 32 romance novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times bestsellers list. For years, she has symbolized an unabashed celebration of female sexuality and pleasure, and now she is the focus of Laura Fairrie’s newest documentary, LADY BOSS: The Jackie Collins Story. Fresh from its Tribeca run, watch the film on CNN.
In case you missed the French Open, you can head over to Metrograph and watch William Klein’s The French. Klein’s documentary is "the ultimate behind-the-scenes look at the 1981 French Open"—complete with appearances of iconic players like Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Chris Evert, Yannick Noah and Ivan Lendl.
More sports action. The New York Times’ new Op-Docs video, Ben Proudfoot’s The Queen of Basketball, tells the story of Lusia Harris, who was drafted by the NBA’s New Orleans Jazz in 1977. Harris scored the first basket in women’s Olympic history, leading the US team to a Silver Medal at the 1976 Summer Games; she also starred at Delta State University, which won three national championships while she was there.
Starting July 2, the 2003 Sundance-touring documentary, Born Rich, will be available to watch on Documentary+. Directed by Johnson & Johnson heir Jamie Johnson, the film feeds our fascination with the lifestyles of the country’s decadent one percent by speaking to the likes of the Trumps, Vanderbilts, and the Bloombergs of the world.
Although we celebrate LGBTQIA+ stories all year here at IDA, we recommend closing out your Pride month viewing with David Weissman’s We Were Here, also streaming on Documentary+. One of the most emotional documents of the AIDS crisis, the film speaks to five San Francisco residents whose lives were forever altered by the illness. The impact of these conversations find global resonance, way beyond San Francisco, even after all these years.