Return to Homs | American Documentary

Return to Homs

POV Season 28

Feature Film
2015

War changes people, including 19-year-old Basset Saroot, who went from star goalkeeper for the Syrian national soccer team to peaceful advocate for Arab Spring reforms to armed insurgent. Return to Homs, which focuses on Basset and his ragtag group's transformation and struggles, is a heart-stopping, often wrenching study of the brutal war President Bashar al-Assad's regime has waged against the Syrian people — a war fought mostly out of camera range that has produced epic heroism and tragedy. Winner of Sundance's 2014 World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, this is an unprecedented view inside a conflict that many accuse the world of overlooking. Winner of the first George Polk Documentary Film Award.

Dark Money

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Dark Money, a political thriller, examines one of the greatest present threats to American democracy: the influence of untraceable corporate money on our elections and elected officials. The film takes viewers to Montana frontline in the fight to preserve fair ...

Survivors

Feature Film
2018

Clip

Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmaker Arthur Pratt, Survivors presents an intimate portrait of his country during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the sociopolitical turmoil that lies in its wake. During one of the ...

Voices of the Sea

Feature Film
2018

Interview

Revealing stark realities for the poorest of rural Cubans with unique access and empathy, this is the story of a 30-something mother of four longing for a better life. The tension between wife and aging husband—one desperate to leave ...

Nowhere to Hide

Feature Film
2018

Clip

Nowhere to Hide follows nurse Nori Sharif through five years of dramatic change in one of the world's most dangerous and inaccessible areas: the "triangle of death" in central Iraq. Initially filming stories of survivors and the hope of a ...

Whose Streets?

Feature Film
2018

Clip

When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of the St. Louis area and beyond. Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the ...

StoryCorps Shorts: Driven

Short Film
2016

Short Film

Wendell Scott was the first African American inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. His son, Frank, remembers what it took for his father to cross the finish line at racetracks throughout the South in the '60s and '70s.

From Damascus to Chicago

Short Film
2017

Short Film

In the documentary short From Damascus to Chicago, two young Syrian siblings recently resettled in Chicago enroll in a dance class, while the film follows their family's experiences in navigating a new city and country.

4.1 Miles

Short Film
2017

Short Film

In the Oscar®-nominated short film 4.1 Miles, Daphne Matziaraki follows a day in the life of Kyriakos Papadopoulos, a captain in the Greek coast guard who is caught in the middle of the refugee crisis in which Europe ...

StoryCorps Shorts: School's Out

Short Film
2016

Short Film

Following the federal mandate to integrate schools in the 1950's, Reverend James Seawood recalls how African Americans were forced out of Sheridan, Arkansas, the fate of his beloved school, and the human cost of "urban renewal."

Pink Boy

Short Film
2016

Short Film

An intimate portrait of a gender-nonconforming child growing up in conservative rural Florida.

Joe's Violin

Short Film
2017

Short Film

In the Oscar-nominated Joe's Violin, a donated musical instrument forges an improbable friendship. 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Joe Feingold and 12-year-old Bronx school girl Brianna Perez show how the power of music can bring light in the darkest of times, and ...

Graven Image

Short Film
2018

Short Film

Using over 100 years of archival footage, director Sierra Pettengill explores the history of the largest Confederate monument: Georgia’s Stone Mountain.

Stay Close

Short Film
2019

Short Film

Stay Close blends home videos and animation in an expressionistic montage to tell the underdog story of Keeth Smart, an African American fencer from Brooklyn who overcomes a gauntlet of hardships on his road to the Olympics.

Crisanto Street

Short Film
2020

Short Film

In the shadow of Silicon Valley, a hidden community thrives despite difficult circumstances. For one resident, eight-year-old Geovany Cesario, impending change is bittersweet.

Reluctantly Queer

Short Film
2020

Short Film

A young gay man from Ghana struggles to reconcile his sexuality and love for his mother through a series of letters in this deceptively simple yet powerful piece.

Gentlemen of Vision

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Gentlemen of Vision follows a year in the life of coach, counselor and founder Marlon Wharton, and his 2015-2016 class of young Black males as he strives to rewrite future prospects for his students. While striving for excellence in school ...

For Ahkeem

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Expelled from high school, Daje Shelton is only 17 years old when she is sentenced by a judge – not to prison, but to an alternative school, the Innovative Concept Academy. It offers Daje one last chance to earn a high ...

Agents of Change

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Agents of Change examines the racial conditions on college campuses across the U.S. in the late 1960’s, focusing on student demands at two seminal protests: San Francisco State in 1968 and Cornell University in 1969. Many of the ...

100 Years

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

100 Years: One Woman's Fight for Justice is the compelling story of Elouise Cobell, a petite Blackfeet warrior from Montana, the great granddaughter of the legendary, Mountain Chief. As an advocate for Native American financial self-determination and independence, she conducted ...

MILWAUKEE 53206

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

MILWAUKEE 53206 introduces viewers to a community with the highest rate of incarcerated African American men in the U.S. The unvarnished film unfolds through the stories of postal code 53206 residents directly impacted by imprisonment: Beverly Walker and her ...

89 Steps

Interactive
2014

In the late 1950s, Marta's mother found refuge for her family in Williamsburg after leaving her village in Puerto Rico and enduring homelessness and hunger elsewhere in New York. When Marta became a single mother, she fought hard to stay ...

Empire

Interactive
2014

The Dutch East and West India Companies once controlled vast trading networks that stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the Indonesian archipelago, and from New York to South America's Wild Coast. Although they came in pursuit of short-term ...

Fukushima

Interactive
2014

A chronicle the ongoing recovery of the Tohoku region of Japan after the devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in 2011.Set three years after the calamitous meltdown, Fukushima: The Eternal Season, creates an impassioned portrait of a resident as ...

Immigrant Nation

Interactive
2014

Immigrant Nation is an interactive storytelling project designed to document the United States' diverse immigrant narratives and experiences and share them with the world. Through short documentary films, live events and an online Story Hub, the project aspires to shift ...

Film Credits

Talal Derki

Press Room

American Documentary Celebrates A Swim Lesson and Until He’s Back Among the Year’s Standouts in 97th Academy Awards® Documentary Shortlist POV, WHUT / Howard University Television, and From Prison Cells to PHD Host Event on Gun Violence Reduction Featuring THE BODY POLITIC Featuring Brandon Scott, Mayor of Baltimore, MD ‘POV Shorts’ Seventh Season Puts Center Stage Ten Short Acquisitions Telling Big Stories in an Arthouse Setting Beginning November 12, 2024 on the PBSApp and POV.org

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