HBO Summer '09 Documentary Schedule

More info, trailers, etc. here

Look out for more detailed posts from me once these air...


July 13th
TEDDY: In His Own Words | Produced by: Peter Kunhardt & Sheila Nevins
Explores the life and 46-year Senate career of Ted Kennedy through his own words, from his childhood up through his speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The film includes archival material and never-before-seen home movies.

July 20th
PROM NIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI | Directed by: Paul Saltzman
An official selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, follows the students, teachers and parents of Charleston, Miss. as they prepare for the first integrated prom at Charleston High. Even though the students share classes and every other aspect of school life, the town of Charleston had a tradition of holding two proms, one white, one black. In 1997, Oscar® winner Morgan Freeman made an historic offer to his hometown high school: He would foot the bill for the school’s senior prom — on the condition that both black and white students be allowed to attend. Freeman’s offer was ignored, but in 2008, he made it again. This time, the school accepted and
history was made, but not without significant opposition.

July 27th
THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD | Directed by: Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno and Kurt Engfehr
Follows two professional tricksters as they infiltrate the world of big business and pull off outrageous pranks in an effort to highlight the human toll of greed and profiteering. This lively documentary focuses on the efforts of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno,frontmen for the Yes Men, to champion worthy causes – and battle the excesses of today’s free-market economy – through high-profile, politically charged hoaxes.

August 3rd
BOY INTERRUPTED | Directed by: Dana Perry
Tells the heartbreaking story of Evan Perry, a 15-year-old boy who jumped to his death from his New York City bedroom window after a lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder. An official selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the documentary recounts Evan’s life and death in the words of his parents, filmmakers Hart and Dana Perry, and others who knew him. Illustrating how one family deals with generations of loss and grief, this moving film defies the stigma associated with mental illness and suicide among children.

August 10th
THE NINE LIVES OF MARION BARRY | Directed by: Dana Flor & Toby Oppenheimer
Profiles the controversial Washington, D.C. politician, viewed by some as a philandering, drug-addled disaster, and by others as a folk hero. His soaring achievements, catastrophic failures and phoenix-like rebirths have made him a symbol of indestructibility. Today, Barry is once again in the political limelight.

August 17th
FIXER: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi | Directed by: Ian Olds
Focuses on the 2007 kidnapping and murder of a 24-year-old Afghan who was hired by foreign journalists to help gather news stories. Ajmal Naqshbandi and an Italian reporter were captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan, but while the journalist was spared, he was killed. Interweaving footage of Ajmal on assignment with an American journalist six months before his abduction, this 2009 Tribeca Film Festival winner shows how Ajmal’s friends, family and fellow abductee try to make sense of his murder.

August 24th
WHICH WAY HOME | Directed by: Rebecca Cammisa
An official selection of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and the upcoming 2009 Los Angeles Film Festival, views the immigration issue through the eyes of children who face harrowing dangers as they journey to the United States. The film follows unaccompanied child migrants traveling by freight train through Mexico, including Jose, a nine-year-old El Salvadoran, who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center, and 14-year-old Kevin, a streetwise Honduran who hopes he will find work in New York City in order to send money back to his mother.

August 31st
YOUTH KNOWS NO PAIN | Directed by: Mitch McCabe
Follows filmmaker Mitch McCabe, the age-obsessed daughter of a plastic surgeon, as she journeys through America’s $60 billion a year anti-aging world. In this “Alice in Wonderland” tale, McCabe spends two years traveling across the country visiting doctors and experts, living with a cross-section of characters from Minnesota to Texas who have gone to varying lengths to “beat the clock.”

September 7th
THE LAST TRUCK: Closing of a GM Plant | Directed by: Steve Bogner & Julia Reichart
Tells the inside story of the last days of a General Motors plant in Moraine, Ohio, as lived by the people who worked the line.