POV

Indie Films Series / 13 Seasons

Since 1988, POV has been the home for the world’s boldest contemporary filmmakers, celebrating intriguing personal stories that spark conversation and inspire action.

Watch Latest: S37 E10

52m 52s / TV-14

StoryCorps Shorts: A Knock at the Door

2m 9s

One late October evening, Juliet Jegasothy was home alone with her baby when her doorbell started ringing. Terrified, she hid in her room and called her husband, Brian, who was working late. The newlyweds had just moved to Brooklyn, NY from Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka, and were still getting used to life in a new country. At StoryCorps, she recounts a spooky night in her new home.

StoryCorps Shorts: The Men Who Fed America

2m 48s

Johnny Itliong grew up in the California grape fields in the 1960s. His father Larry Itliong was a migrant farmworker and a leader of the Delano Grape Strike. As a kid, Johnny spent his days lending a hand to his father and the men who worked in the fields. Johnny brought his son, Aleks, to a StoryCorps recording booth to honor the memory of his father and the men who helped feed America.

a film is a goodbye that never ends

13m 44s / TV-PG

A woman waits for a visa with a dog that she grows to adore. They walk, cuddle, watch TV and play together. As time passes she has to grapple with their imminent separation. With the film, she attempts to recreate a less painful goodbye.

StoryCorps Shorts: Beat by Beat

2m 47s

In the 1980s, Ed Cage fell in love with beatboxing through the St. Louis hip hop scene. When he became a dad, his talent became a way to connect with his daughter, Nicole Paris. At StoryCorps, Ed and Nicole talk about how he passed the beat on to the next generation.

StoryCorps Shorts: Heart to Heart

2m 22s

In 1972, Sarah Churchill gave birth to her third child, Yomi. After she was born, doctors told her the baby had a rare genetic disorder that causes bones to break under the slightest pressure. At StoryCorps, Yomi asked her mom to tell her about the night she was born.

StoryCorps Shorts: Then and Now

2m 23s

Sisters Janaki Symon and Melissa Wilbur grew up in New York and settled across the country from each other as adults. The StoryCorps MobileBooth was in town when Melissa was visiting her sister, and Janaki invited her to sit down and talk about their relationship.

StoryCorps Shorts: The Family Equation

2m 27s

When William Lynn Weaver was growing up in Nashville, TN, his father, Ted Weaver, worked long hours as a janitor and chauffeur. At StoryCorps, Lynn talks with his daughter, Kimberly, about his father’s impact.

Still Waters

12m 4s / TV-14

Through a series of extraordinarily honest and intimate conversations, filmmaker Aurora Brachman examines the intergenerational fallout of experiences her mother endured as a child. Together, they forge a path forward that offers them a new beginning.

StoryCorps Shorts: Mama Sug

2m 37s

Affectionately known as “Sug,” Cora Lee Collins captured the hearts of all. At StoryCorps, Sug's daughter and granddaughter, Penelope Simmons and Suzanne Wayne, come together to reminisce about the wild, fun, and loving household Penelope grew up in and the endearing qualities that made her Mama Sug so cherished by everyone.

StoryCorps Shorts: Grandma's Hands

2m 42s

Madzimoyo Owusu, who grew up in the same three-story apartment building as her grandparents in Chicago’s West Side in the 1970s, remembers always feeling protected by her grandmother—even when they would just sit in silence. At StoryCorps, she opens up to her daughter, Johannah, about how her grandmother’s gentle, yet powerful, spirit left a lasting imprint on her life.

StoryCorps Shorts: Rules of the Road

3m 6s

Raised in New York City, Maritza Bell never learned how to drive. Later, her husband Danny tried to teach her. At StoryCorps, Danny and their daughter, Sydia, fondly recall how a driving lesson gone wrong turned into a legendary family story.

Sol in the Garden

20m 37s / TV-14

After 16 years of incarceration, Sol is released from prison, when she discovers that coming into her own freedom can be as challenging as living behind bars. Through a community gardening collective of formerly incarcerated horticulturalists in East Oakland, Sol strives to recover her humanity and sense of self.

Between Earth & Sky

25m 37s / TV-14

Renowned ecologist Nalini Nadkarni studies "what grows back” after a disturbance in the rainforest canopy. After surviving a life-threatening fall from a tree, she must turn her research question onto herself to explore the effects of disturbance and recovery throughout her own life.

When It's Good, It's Good

10m 35s / TV-14

A filmmaker returns to her hometown in West Texas to document the effects of the boom-and-bust nature of the oil industry. An intimate portrait of family, memory, and economy, When It’s Good, It’s Good centers around life in an oil town called Denver City, Texas.

StoryCorps Shorts: Dreamer's Gift

2m 7s

For decades, Dreamer has been generously offering free haircuts to veterans from a trailer stationed in the heart of the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Campus. At StoryCorps, Dreamer sits down with his friend, Paul Crowley, to discuss the transformative power of a haircut.

StoryCorps Shorts: Family Harmony

2m 50s

When Gilbert Zermeño dreamed of joining his school band, he pictured himself playing a shiny saxophone. To his dismay, his family—getting by on the $100 a week that his father made working in the nearby cotton fields—couldn’t afford one. At StoryCorps, he shares with his wife, Patricia Powers-Zermeño, how his musical journey began on a bad note, but ended in harmony.

Freshwater

9m 43s / TV-PG

Detroiters experienced an enhanced form of water destruction from massive flooding that destroyed homes, belongings and lives in the summer of 2021. The water rose in streets, alleys, yards and, most devastatingly, in people’s homes, where it submerged possessions and memories, and surfaced emotions many were not prepared to confront.

By Way of Canarsie

14m 15s / TV-PG

A portrait of an oft-neglected community imagining possible futures at odds with the present. Using various formats, these vignettes explore Canarsie’s unique relationship to the water through recreation, brief encounters, and expressive use of analog film, granting an understanding of this predominantly Black neighborhood’s shared desires for recognition and respect.

The Body is a House of Familiar Rooms

10m 23s / TV-PG

A magical-realist window into life with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Combining paintings and live-action footage to reveal the emotional depth of Samuel Geiger's physical world–with his partner, painter Lauryn Welch– while exploring disability, love, and the forms they take within the bodies and spaces we are given.

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