Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Premiering March 15 on Paramount Network, I Am Richard Pryor, from Jesse James Miller, explores and celebrates the life and career of the iconic comedian who lifted himself out of poverty to achieve worldwide success as a shrewd and penetrating observer of the Black experience in America.
The six-episode Finding Justice, airing Sundays on BET through April 14t, travels the country to join heroes, leaders and activists as they battle to bring change to their home cities. Each episode focuses on a different injustice impacting the Black community in a specific city. The show goes beyond exploring the devastation caused by racial injustice and intimately follows real-life journeys toward change.
ṢOJU Africa is both a Youtube channel and a documentary series dedicated to youth-related topics like identity, entrepreneurship, entertainment and lifestyle in Africa and in the diaspora. Oluwaseun Babalola, a Sierra Leonean-Nigerian- American filmmaker and entrepreneur, created the channel and the series out of frustration over seeing a narrow version of Africa in the media..
Currently streaming on Facebook Watch is Bernardo Ruiz’ USA v. Chapo: The Drug War Goes on Trial, a five-part series produced by Rolling Stone and Jigsaw Productions. The series documents the rise and fall of the infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera. As Ruiz explains in a statement, “The series focuses as much on the political and economic context that gave birth to Chapo, as it does on how he became such a notorious figure. And while many outlets have further inflated the Chapo myth, we interrogate that myth, asking if the focus on one person has served to distract from the more serious problems of the drug war.”
Premiering March 17 on CNN, Tricky Dick, a four-part series, explores Richard Nixon’s life and times, tracking his rise as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower, his defeats in successive campaigns for US president and California governor, his victory in the 1968 US Presidential election, and his political destruction six years later. Produced by Left/Righ,t with Banks Tarver, Ken Druckerman, Anneka Jones, Mary Robertson, Amy Entelis and Lizzie Fox serving as executive producers.