Dawn Porter

Award-winning documentarian Dawn Porter talks about bringing journalistic principles and standards to documentary filmmaking and treating documentary subjects as collaborators and partners rather than “subjects.” We also discuss the need to keep having the difficult conversations needed to keep up with the changing documentary landscape. We also talk about how she got into the business by way of another profession, and discuss one of my favorites of her films, Gideon's Army, which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for both the Independent Spirit Award for Best Doc and an Emmy.

Dawn’s 2023 film, The Lady Bird Diaries was called “mesmerizing” and “elegant” by The Guardian. She is also known for the HBO film Trapped, about the last abortion providers in Mississippi, as well as films about Civil Rights icon John Lewis and the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. More about Dawn here.

Films mentioned in this episode:

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022), Dir. Laura Poitras

Hoop Dreams (1994), Dir. Steve James 

The Territory (2022), Dir. Alex Pritz

Gideon’s Army (2013), Dir. Dawn Porter

The Interrupters (2011), Dir. Steve James

Jesus Camp (2006), Dir. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

Five Broken Cameras (2011), Dir. Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi

Other Mentions:

Nan Goldin

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Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)

This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.