September brought a rash of film festivals (well, maybe "rash" is the wrong word; that sounds like a skin condition. How about a "slew" instead?). In any case, it was one film festival after another this month, beginning with Venice, continuing with Telluride, then Toronto, and for documentary…

The oldest human being alive right now, in case you've been wondering, is Ethel Caterham of Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, England, who turned 117 in August. She succeeded to the title of oldest person in the world after the death of Inah Canabarro Lucas, a Brazilian nun who died in 2025 at the age…

The zombie – slow moving, with sallow complexion, hollow eyes, rotting teeth and a hunger for human flesh – has been lumbering through Hollywood movies for decades now. In fact, the first representation of the undead creatures came in the film White Zombie, released all the way back in 1932. That…

Adrian McElwee, son of the filmmaker Ross McElwee, was such an interesting child, full of precocious wisdom. For instance, when his father asked young Adrian during a seaside trip, "Why do you think you like fishing so much?" the boy spontaneously replied, "I don't know. I just love the deep…

Dr. Mark Perlmutter doesn't mince words describing what he saw as an American orthopedic surgeon volunteering in Gaza hospitals. He calls the killing of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces "the worst pediatric homicide" he's ever witnessed. Perlmutter is one…

Some of the top documentary filmmakers in the world soon will be packing their bags for Toronto, preparing for a curtain call at one of the world's most important cinematic events. The 51st edition of the Toronto Film Festival again features a dynamic roster of documentaries, ranging from…

Director Rebecca Miller calls Martin Scorsese "the maestro," and who would disagree with that? Scorsese has been making cinematic masterpieces for many decades now – Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, GoodFellas, Casino, The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, to name only a few. Miller explores the…

For over 75 years, Mel Brooks has been making people laugh. Hard. He's brought to the screen Mongo, Lili Von Shtüpp, the grandson of a certain mad scientist (aka Young Frankenstein), Frau Blücher ("A little Ovaltine, perhaps?), Louis XVI ("It's good to be the king"), Max Bialystock, Leo Bloom…

Just after he turned 100, David Attenborough achieved the extraordinary. The famed naturalist and author earned not one but two Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Narrator this year, one for the Netflix documentary A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough, the other for the National…

What is Iceland without ice? That question, once unimaginable, has become urgent as climate change shrinks the country's glaciers to the vanishing point. The Nordic nation has already bid farewell to dozens of its smaller glaciers – the first to go being Okjökull (also known as Ok glacier), in…

Kartemquin Films has always been guided by the motto "Democracy through Documentary," as author Patricia Aufderheide notes in her book Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy. For generations, the Chicago-based institution has been producing some of the most lauded and…

For much of her adult life, poet Mary Oliver pursued her métier in relative obscurity, publishing well respected if modestly selling volumes of her work. Then, in 1984, she won the Pulitzer Prize, and that changed everything. Oliver in her last three decades became a rare celebrity poet…