Filmmaker Tiller Russell (Waco: American Apocalypse, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, Operation Odessa, The Last Narc, The Seven Five) exchanges the...
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck’s latest film, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”, chronicles the profound life and work of Ernest Cole, one of the first Black freelance photographers in South Africa, whose work revealed to the world the realities of Black life during apartheid, and later, its echoes in New York City and the American South. Raoul shares with Tiller how he sees the difference between convincing an audience versus telling a story (2:30) how he uses his personal background as a medium to tell each story with deep authenticity (2:30), finding the soul of this film (8:00), why he doesn’t call his art “journalism” (19:00), his process of creation and experimentation (26:30), the deep understanding he shares with his editor (32:00), and the suffocating constraints of the doc industry today (39:00).
Produced by: Jacob Miller
Executive Producer: Tiller Russell
Music by: James Carroll, Graham Tracey & Zydepunk
Distributed by: Jake Brennan & Brady Sadler, Double Elvis Productions
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51:20
Julian Brave NoiseCat & Emily Kassie (Sugarcane)
A stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life, SUGARCANE, the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning. Nominated for an Academy Award in 2025, it bravely illustrates an investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school that sparks a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. Julian and Emily share with Tiller how they came together to make this film (2:00), the decision to make Julian an on-camera character (8:00), how they constructed the edit after shooting for 160 days (12:30), using archival as a form of memory and propaganda (19:30), and how it felt screening the film for the first time at the world premiere (28:00).
Produced by: Jacob Miller
Executive Producer: Tiller Russell
Music by: James Carroll, Graham Tracey & Zydepunk
Distributed by: Jake Brennan & Brady Sadler, Double Elvis Productions
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32:01
Angela Patton & Natalie Rae (Daughters)
“Daughters” presents the story of four young girls as they prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C. jail. For most of the daughters, the dance will be the only time they will be able to touch or hug their fathers during sentences, some of which are as long as 20 years. Co-directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae share with Tiller their experience meeting because of a TED talk (3:00), earning the trust of the mothers and daughters (8:30), working with the fathers inside the prison (15:00), the cinematographer’s vital impact (21:00), why the film took so many years to make (33:00), and how to follow their impact campaign (40:50).
Produced by: Jacob Miller
Executive Producer: Tiller Russell
Music by: James Carroll, Graham Tracey & Zydepunk
Distributed by: Jake Brennan & Brady Sadler, Double Elvis Productions
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42:27
Dylan Reeve (Tickled)
In “Tickled”, a story stranger than fiction, journalist David Farrier and filmmaker Dylan Reeve uncover a strange tickling subculture. Delving deeper into the dark world of a tickling competition, they are with fierce resistance as they uncover a dark empire ensnaring and exploiting vulnerable young men. Dylan shares with Tiller how he and his co-director David Farrier blindly stumbled into this story (1:00), why they had to reshoot virtually everything (11:00, getting threats the deeper they went down the rabbit hole (18:30), the lies and bravery of his main characters (30:00), when they realized the film had transitioned from silly to dark and investigative (34:00), and the enduring legacy of making a film like this (41:00).
Produced by: Jacob Miller
Executive Producer: Tiller Russell
Music by: James Carroll, Graham Tracey & Zydepunk
Distributed by: Jake Brennan & Brady Sadler, Double Elvis Productions
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49:41
Gilad Baram (Koudelka Shooting Holy Land)
Gilad Baram is an Israeli photographer, visual artist and documentarian. His 2015 film “Koudelka Shooting Holy Land” follows iconic Czech photographer Josef Koudelka’s journey through Israel and Palestine as he captures the essence of that conflicted land. Tiller begins the discussion explaining how he thinks this film achieves rigorous artistic singularity (2:30), before Gilad shares why this was never meant to be a film (10:30), Koudelka’s surprising documentation of the West Bank border (20:00), how a foreign Czech photographer helped him look at his homeland of Israel in a new way (27:00), and the importance of still photography in our increasingly digital world (35:00).
Produced by: Jacob Miller
Executive Producer: Tiller Russell
Music by: James Carroll, Graham Tracey & Zydepunk
Distributed by: Jake Brennan & Brady Sadler, Double Elvis Productions
Filmmaker Tiller Russell (Waco: American Apocalypse, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, Operation Odessa, The Last Narc, The Seven Five) exchanges the camera for a microphone, sitting down with other documentary filmmakers for riveting, in-depth conversations about their most successful, iconic or recent films.
UK