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Ben Steinbauer & Keith Maitland

Doc Walks

A Film Interviews and TV & Film podcast

#120 in Film Interviews · 🇺🇸 #134 in Film Interviews · 🇬🇧
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About the show

Documentary filmmakers, Keith Maitland (TOWER, DEAR MR BRODY) and Ben Steinbauer (WINNEBAGO MAN, CHOP & STEELE), host this lively walk & talk podcast featuring conversations with today's best non-fiction storytellers. DocWalks takes the conversation to the street (or nature trail), offering candid insight into the art & industry of documentary filmmaking for an audience of emerging filmmakers and doc-lovers alike.

Newest episodes

EP079 - We Left Jimmy Carter in a Tree w/ Chris Demarais

1 hr 5 min

We hit the Town Lake trail (it's a river, we know) with Chris Demarais, longtime Rooster Teeth filmmaker, Ben's former UT student, and the guy who proved you can, in fact, simply walk into Mordor.  Chris takes us from public-access TV and a very early letter of recommendation to thirteen years at the company behind RED VS. BLUE, back when it sold DVDs and pre-dated YouTube. Then the walks: A SIMPLE WALK INTO MORDOR, three people, a DSLR, a GoPro, about three grand and a lot of hobbit costume, Hobbiton to Mount Doom, edited in three weeks. Ten years later comes A SIMPLE WALK II: 155 miles in ten days, a storm closing in on the mountain, toenails lost, and a panic attack at altitude.  We get into the moment Chris told his best friend "no" to filming, the first time he ever cried on camera, and what happens when you try to perform and be real at the same time. Along the way: the lawyers who wouldn't let them say "Mordor" the second time, what it's like when a twelve-person company gets acquired, and how Chris went independent with Tales from the Stinky Dragon and Good Morning From Hell. Ben and Chris also trade notes on pointing a camera at yourself, being a character in your own film, and making one thing for them and one thing for you.  His advice for new filmmakers: document the journey, because people love the story of the thing as much as the thing. Plus: we find a 3D-printed Jimmy Carter on the trail, join his art-project adventure, and leave him up a tree. DISCUSSION LINKS: A SIMPLE WALK INTO MORDOR (2012) | A SIMPLE WALK II (2023) | RED VS. BLUE (2003) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | Tales from the Stinky Dragon (podcast) | Good Morning From Hell (podcast) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Walking onto the South Congress Bridge 00:38 Town Lake (it's a river) 01:21 How Ben and Chris met: Intro to Image and Sound at UT 02:17 The scholarship letter of recommendation 03:14 The weed-out class and learning what you're ripping off 05:26 From UT to contract work to Rooster Teeth...

EP078 - Bad Luck Shoes w/ Patrick Bresnan & Ivete Lucas

1 hr 17 min

We sneak out of the AFS Cinema mid-screening for our first-ever four-way walk with Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas, the married filmmakers behind PAHOKEE and NAKED GARDENS, in town with their new film FIRST THEY CAME FOR MY COLLEGE. It's about the political takeover of New College of Florida, and Patrick tells us how producer Holly Herrick roped him in, why he filmed for two and a half years, and how wine and long dinners with students got him through it. Then we rewind. Patrick was a prankster in Philadelphia and San Francisco, jumping into hippo tanks and winning a David Hasselhoff contest to visit the BAYWATCH set (hello, THE CONTESTANT). After Hurricane Katrina he volunteered with Mennonite disaster crews, and something clicked: be of service first, film second. Ivete's path runs from Sao Paulo to Monterrey, where she made art shows and pranks of her own, and where the two of them met in 2008 after Patrick prayed in church for a little luck. It worked. They've been together ever since. We dig into how they earn trust in communities for a year at a time: printing a thousand photos in Pahokee, becoming "Patrick the photo guy," and putting the kids in front of the Q&A mic. Plus the pitch for NAKED GARDENS ("Grey Gardens at a nudist resort"), shooting it while Ivete was pregnant, and why some French decision-makers couldn't watch it. We also talk AI anxiety, the garden club that steals the film, and the gateway doc that changed Patrick's life: HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT. Plus: exploding shoes, chafing, and why Ivete says they're "the antithesis of AI."   DISCUSSION LINKS: HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT (1986) | SLACKER (1990) | PAHOKEE (2019) | BOYS STATE (2020) | NAKED GARDENS (2022) | THE CONTESTANT (2025) | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | THE AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST (2026) | FIRST THEY CAME FOR MY COLLEGE (2026)   TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro: the shoes that exploded 01:45 Meet Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas 02:30 AI anxiety and why plumbers go first...

EP077 - You Don't Know How to Feel

19 min

Keith and his wife caught it on a Tuesday night date night. Ben and his wife skipped work to see it in a theater, in the middle of the day. When was the last time a three-hour documentary caught the attention of just about everyone around? Just about never—so we had to talk about it. This week it's just the two of us unpacking YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim film about Elizabeth Holmes, shot in the weeks before she reported to prison. It's a big-idea access movie that puts documentary technique under a warped microscope. One of us calls it one of the greatest pieces of art in years. The other can't stop noticing the cameras. We argue over a jumped line, long lenses, and a baby shot through a crib, and whether Oppenheim's polished style (see SPERMWORLD and REN FAIRE) reads as artifice. Toss in Fielder's THE REHEARSAL brand of authenticity-poking and you get a very volatile mix. We debate whether SHERMAN'S MARCH or HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON is the "real" version of on-camera awkwardness. So much to unpack in this film, about the father,and the ex, and how it handles Billy Evans asking for money, and whether documentary subjects should get paid. Should it get a Best Picture nod? A Best Documentary nod? Both? Spoilers are fair game, but Keith says this movie can't really be spoiled. Ben says skip work and you won't believe your eyes. Plus: the word "can," that icky car ride to prison, and why we think the film is really about you, yes you—the audience. DISCUSSION LINKS: YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING (2026) | SHERMAN'S MARCH (1985) | HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON (2020) | THE REHEARSAL (2022) | REN FAIRE (2024) | SPERMWORLD (2024) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Skipping work to see a documentary 00:41 Unfettered access and a stunning document 01:41 Is it a documentary? 02:24 Access, ethics and authenticity 02:54 Awards talk and the meaning of "can" 04:00 A mirror to the audience 04:35 Straight documentary, then recreation (spoilers) 05:14 Oppenheim's callin...

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All episodes

EP079 - We Left Jimmy Carter in a Tree w/ Chris Demarais

1 hr 5 min

We hit the Town Lake trail (it's a river, we know) with Chris Demarais, longtime Rooster Teeth filmmaker, Ben's former UT student, and the guy who proved you can, in fact, simply walk into Mordor.  Chris takes us from public-access TV and a very early letter of recommendation to thirteen years at the company behind RED VS. BLUE, back when it sold DVDs and pre-dated YouTube. Then the walks: A SIMPLE WALK INTO MORDOR, three people, a DSLR, a GoPro, about three grand and a lot of hobbit costume, Hobbiton to Mount Doom, edited in three weeks. Ten years later comes A SIMPLE WALK II: 155 miles in ten days, a storm closing in on the mountain, toenails lost, and a panic attack at altitude.  We get into the moment Chris told his best friend "no" to filming, the first time he ever cried on camera, and what happens when you try to perform and be real at the same time. Along the way: the lawyers who wouldn't let them say "Mordor" the second time, what it's like when a twelve-person company gets acquired, and how Chris went independent with Tales from the Stinky Dragon and Good Morning From Hell. Ben and Chris also trade notes on pointing a camera at yourself, being a character in your own film, and making one thing for them and one thing for you.  His advice for new filmmakers: document the journey, because people love the story of the thing as much as the thing. Plus: we find a 3D-printed Jimmy Carter on the trail, join his art-project adventure, and leave him up a tree. DISCUSSION LINKS: A SIMPLE WALK INTO MORDOR (2012) | A SIMPLE WALK II (2023) | RED VS. BLUE (2003) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | Tales from the Stinky Dragon (podcast) | Good Morning From Hell (podcast) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Walking onto the South Congress Bridge 00:38 Town Lake (it's a river) 01:21 How Ben and Chris met: Intro to Image and Sound at UT 02:17 The scholarship letter of recommendation 03:14 The weed-out class and learning what you're ripping off 05:26 From UT to contract work to Rooster Teeth...

EP078 - Bad Luck Shoes w/ Patrick Bresnan & Ivete Lucas

1 hr 17 min

We sneak out of the AFS Cinema mid-screening for our first-ever four-way walk with Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas, the married filmmakers behind PAHOKEE and NAKED GARDENS, in town with their new film FIRST THEY CAME FOR MY COLLEGE. It's about the political takeover of New College of Florida, and Patrick tells us how producer Holly Herrick roped him in, why he filmed for two and a half years, and how wine and long dinners with students got him through it. Then we rewind. Patrick was a prankster in Philadelphia and San Francisco, jumping into hippo tanks and winning a David Hasselhoff contest to visit the BAYWATCH set (hello, THE CONTESTANT). After Hurricane Katrina he volunteered with Mennonite disaster crews, and something clicked: be of service first, film second. Ivete's path runs from Sao Paulo to Monterrey, where she made art shows and pranks of her own, and where the two of them met in 2008 after Patrick prayed in church for a little luck. It worked. They've been together ever since. We dig into how they earn trust in communities for a year at a time: printing a thousand photos in Pahokee, becoming "Patrick the photo guy," and putting the kids in front of the Q&A mic. Plus the pitch for NAKED GARDENS ("Grey Gardens at a nudist resort"), shooting it while Ivete was pregnant, and why some French decision-makers couldn't watch it. We also talk AI anxiety, the garden club that steals the film, and the gateway doc that changed Patrick's life: HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT. Plus: exploding shoes, chafing, and why Ivete says they're "the antithesis of AI."   DISCUSSION LINKS: HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT (1986) | SLACKER (1990) | PAHOKEE (2019) | BOYS STATE (2020) | NAKED GARDENS (2022) | THE CONTESTANT (2025) | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | THE AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST (2026) | FIRST THEY CAME FOR MY COLLEGE (2026)   TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro: the shoes that exploded 01:45 Meet Patrick Bresnan and Ivete Lucas 02:30 AI anxiety and why plumbers go first...

EP077 - You Don't Know How to Feel

19 min

Keith and his wife caught it on a Tuesday night date night. Ben and his wife skipped work to see it in a theater, in the middle of the day. When was the last time a three-hour documentary caught the attention of just about everyone around? Just about never—so we had to talk about it. This week it's just the two of us unpacking YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim film about Elizabeth Holmes, shot in the weeks before she reported to prison. It's a big-idea access movie that puts documentary technique under a warped microscope. One of us calls it one of the greatest pieces of art in years. The other can't stop noticing the cameras. We argue over a jumped line, long lenses, and a baby shot through a crib, and whether Oppenheim's polished style (see SPERMWORLD and REN FAIRE) reads as artifice. Toss in Fielder's THE REHEARSAL brand of authenticity-poking and you get a very volatile mix. We debate whether SHERMAN'S MARCH or HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON is the "real" version of on-camera awkwardness. So much to unpack in this film, about the father,and the ex, and how it handles Billy Evans asking for money, and whether documentary subjects should get paid. Should it get a Best Picture nod? A Best Documentary nod? Both? Spoilers are fair game, but Keith says this movie can't really be spoiled. Ben says skip work and you won't believe your eyes. Plus: the word "can," that icky car ride to prison, and why we think the film is really about you, yes you—the audience. DISCUSSION LINKS: YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING (2026) | SHERMAN'S MARCH (1985) | HOW TO WITH JOHN WILSON (2020) | THE REHEARSAL (2022) | REN FAIRE (2024) | SPERMWORLD (2024) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Skipping work to see a documentary 00:41 Unfettered access and a stunning document 01:41 Is it a documentary? 02:24 Access, ethics and authenticity 02:54 Awards talk and the meaning of "can" 04:00 A mirror to the audience 04:35 Straight documentary, then recreation (spoilers) 05:14 Oppenheim's callin...

EP076 - Life and Death w/ Brett Morgen

1 hr 9 min

A seasoned mainstay of the LA documentary scene, Brett Morgen takes Keith for a walk around his charming Rustic Canyon neighborhood. Brett is the filmmaker behind major releases like MOONAGE DAYDREAM, JANE, COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK, ON THE ROPES, and the animated Hollywood tale, THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE. Just two weeks into his empty-nester era and newly back in his house, post-LA-fires, Brett is ready to walk and doc.  He opens up about his MOONAGE DAYDREAM process, how the film was inspired by Bowie's death, and how for him, docmaking is a writing exercise—that the edit room is about the juxtaposition of shots—and real storytelling happens before all that. Keith confesses that Brett's approach to re-creation in CHICAGO 10 opened up creative opportunities, but Brett defers to Flaherty and NANOOK OF THE NORTH, sparking a question of authenticity, documentary ethics, and why the "doc police" are waiting to come for you. The heart of this walk is all about the heart attack that Brett suffered at a TOWER screening that bonded him and Keith for life. And he ends up sharing what David Bowie taught him about living once he came out the other side. Plus: THE SWORD IN THE STONE, WILLY WONKA, the future of immersive audience experiences (stadium edition), and advice for a 21-year-old musician that we can all take to heart. DISCUSSION LINKS: ON THE ROPES (1999) | THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE (2002) | CHICAGO 10 (2007) | CROSSFIRE HURRICANE (2012) | COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK (2015) | TOWER (2016) | JANE (2017) | MOONAGE DAYDREAM (2022) | ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN (2021) | RICOCHET (1984) | ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS (1983) | THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (1976) | NANOOK OF THE NORTH (1922) | WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | THE SWORD IN THE STONE (1963) | WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Keith's intro from the Uber 01:43 Rustic Canyon 02:14 The mudslide that took Brett's house 03:26 Near misses,...

EP075 - Naked And Vulnerable W/ Ben & Keith

1 hr 9 min

Episode 75, the Diamond Jubilee, and it's just the two of us. With no guest, with no safety net or buffer, this one finds Ben feeling both naked and vulnerable. But Keith is there to calm his nerves with: a full craft episode, with three buckets. First bucket up, OBSERVATIONAL FILMMAKING. What's right & wrong about fly-on-the-wall as a premise and who gets it right. Ben walks through his plan for an upcoming shoot, and Keith pokes at whether that's observation at all. We'll talk Wiseman and the Maysles and turn to our experiences with 100-plus days hanging out with teenagers at the Texas School for the Blind for Keith's THE EYES OF ME; and one great day on Ben's undergrad short DAY WITH JOHN. Bucket two: RE-CREATION. Keith's got opinions. And a time-tested theory that re-cre (as well as animation) works when it's A-roll and fails as a B-roll Band-Aid. We get into our work on TOWER, DEAR MR. BRODY, and CALLS TO OKIES—and widen out to discuss the subjects and objects of NANOOK OF THE NORTH, THE THIN BLUE LINE and THE ACT OF KILLING. Speaking of subjectivity, Keith drops the bold claim that re-creation is more truthful than observation because it announces itself and Ben has thoughts. Bucket three, for today was meant to be ARCHIVAL STORYTELLING.  But as episode 75 runs out of road, we punt on an archival deep-dive for a future episode. So, call this one: 2 out of 3 buckets. Plus: a callback to Barlow Jacobs & Pete Muller; we start counting steps; and we close with some in-theater, under-the-radar recs: WTO/99 and FLAG DAY. DISCUSSION LINKS: THE EYES OF ME (2009) | DAY WITH JOHN (2002) | SALESMAN (1969) | GIMME SHELTER (1970) | TOWER (2016) | DEAR MR. BRODY (2022) | CALLS TO OKIES: THE PARK GRUBBS STORY (2015) | NANOOK OF THE NORTH (1922) | THE VOYAGE OUT (2025) | THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988) | THE ACT OF KILLING (2012) | LA 92 (2017) | LET THE FIRE BURN (2013) | BUCKS HARBOR (2026) | WTO/99 (2025) | FLAG DAY (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Cold open: selfie sticks and o...

EP074 - The Treatiest of Treatises w/ Jeremy Workman

1 hr 1 min

If you're looking for a beer and a sandwich you're in the right place… welcome to Red Hook, Brooklyn, home of dock workers and DocWalkers—meet Jeremy Workman. Jeremy is the director behind the arthouse success story, SECRET MALL APARTMENT. He's also known for LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD, and this year's festival hit, SCHOOL FOR DEFECTORS.  When thunder rolls in, we duck into the Red Hook Lobster Pound for a beer, and Jeremy shares his experiences as a second-generation filmmaker (shoutout Chuck Workman) and a deeply experienced trailer-cutter, name-dropping Tarantino, Scorsese, and Maitland along the way. But today's all about the secrets to success in documentary self-distribution. If you haven't seen SECRET MALL APARTMENT, go watch it on Netflix—Jeremy shares the long and self-designed road that got it there. After a SXSW premiere, SECRET MALL APARTMENT had no offers, so Jeremy and his team released it themselves, pushing the "treatise on art" to more than 300 theaters, grossing a million bucks, before landing on Netflix's top five. His take on most distributors? Not kind.  We also get into how Jeremy funds his films with a tight circle of private investors, his collaborations with Jesse Eisenberg, why a seven-figure sale of LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD didn't feel like a win, and the Ed Pressman memorial that led him straight to Flaco the owl, star of Penny Lane's WILD INSIDE. Plus: how to survive festival rejection (say yes to yourself); inspiration via early Errol Morris, Gary Hustwit, and MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA; and why we need Chris Smith on this show. We end the way every DocWalk should: an Italian combo, plus sopressata from Defonte's Sandwich Shop.   DISCUSSION LINKS: SECRET MALL APARTMENT (2024) | SCHOOL FOR DEFECTORS (2026) | LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD (2021) | THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR FEET (2018) | WILD INSIDE (2026) | AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ (2026) | WHO MOVES AMERICA (2026) | SHERMAN'S MARCH (1985) | DEAR MR. BRODY (2021) | TOWER (2016) | THE...

EP073 - No One's Comin' To Save You w/ Dana Reilly

1 hr 10 min

You may remember Dana Reilly, New York filmmaker, and UT Radio-TV-Film alum from our walk around Main Street at Sundance this year. Well, she's back in Austin to present her first feature, OUR BODY ELECTRIC, at the AFS Cinema.  From nimbus clouds, to a walk around the DAZED AND CONFUSED baseball diamond, Dana shares the stories that got her to this auspicious moment at the Northwest park trail. From her expat childhood in London (Chris Columbus' kids went to her school) to PROMISES and the classroom AV cart that hooked her on docs, to Brown, the Washington Post Brand Studio and a quarter-life crisis that landed her in Austin for grad school and an impactful stint at Go-Valley. Keith edited her thesis doc, FAVORITE DAUGHTER—a loving portrait of her mom and her grandmother quarantining together in a Tribeca apartment during COVID. It went from a messy, beautiful jumble to Telluride and MTV Documentary Films (thank you Sheila Nevins!)  Then the walk goes sideways/back in time. Medieval LARPers take over the park, and pull our attention. Meet the Vinland Texas Vikings, sword-fighting under the Texas sun with helmets, shields and their own strict code of conduct… Dana shares the spotlight for a few moments before we re-center on OUR BODY ELECTRIC. This episode features a trailer for the film, which follows three women bodybuilders vying for the Ms. Olympia title. And we conclude the walk at the AFS Cinema for the post-screening Q&A…  When it comes to indie doc-making, Dana tells it like it is, "no one's comin' to save you." Not body-builders, not viking LARPers—no one, but you (& your friends at DocWalks).   DISCUSSION LINKS: OUR BODY ELECTRIC (2026) | FAVORITE DAUGHTER (2022) | DEAR MR. BRODY (2022) | DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993) | SLACKER (1990) | EL MARIACHI (1992) | SEVEN UP! (1964) | PROMISES (2001) | PUMPING IRON (1977) | PUMPING IRON II: THE WOMEN (1985) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Clouds, nimbus puns and a walk in Northwest Park 01:00 Hunting for the DAZED AND CONFU...

EP072 - Not Since Walt Disney… w/ Geeta Gandbhir

1 hr 12 min

It's a rainy day in Brooklyn, but it sure felt like the sun was shining—guess that's just the effect that Geeta Gandbhir has on those around her! Geeta is having a big year—she just became the first director ever nominated for both documentary feature and a documentary short Oscars in the same year… the first woman, and woman of color with two same year directing noms, challenging the long-standing status of Walt Disney who pulled that feat off in the animated categories decades ago. But we're talkin' docs here and Geeta made two incredible entries last year with the feature, THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR for Netflix, and the short THE DEVIL IS BUSY for HBO. Keith was bowled-over by THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (produced by Episode 55 guest Alisa Payne) and Geeta shares plenty of behind the scenes details on this singular film. How does a community tragedy in Ocala, Florida become an innovative all-archival film built almost entirely from police bodycam footage? Start with a two-year neighborhood dispute, collect 30 hours of unsynced video, and rely on the talents of editor, Viridiana Lieberman, to figure out a new grammar for 21st-century archival storytelling. No big deal, it just had Keith bawling like a baby, on his second watch, on a plane ride to NYC. No. Big. Deal. We deep-dive, into a moment when a chance encounter with Spike Lee yields a gig on MALCOLM X, sound-room time on Robert Altman's SHORT CUTS, and a mentorship with Sam Pollard that took her from animated to scripted to documentary by way of WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE. There's real advice here for editors turning directors (know every job on set), directors and editors (get a referee), and anyone telling a story about a community that isn't theirs. We dig into the pending merger, the squeeze on buyers, and why going independent was the only way THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR could exist.  Plus: her next project on Whoopi Goldberg, the comic books and the spaghetti-less western, SHOLAY that got her here, and a mention of Harry Bel...

EP071 - Mediation Required w/ Andrew & Melissa Shea

1 hr 1 min

We hit the trail with Austin's own husband-and-wife filmmaking duo, Andrew and Melissa Shea. They've been married for nearly 30 years, partnered on every film they've ever made, and, according to Ben, may be the first couple to pull that off. Andrew's road to filmmaking was wonderfully circuitous. He started as a New York theater kid, passed the bar in two states, ran a regional theater in Santa Fe for eight seasons, and enrolled at USC film school in his 30s. That's where he met Melissa on day one and immediately clashed with her so badly that their TA had to mediate (hence the episode title). Three decades and two kids later, they're still married and still arguing their way toward great movies. We trace the full arc of their filmmaking lives, from the narrative features SANTA FE, THE CORNDOG MAN, and FORFEIT to Andrew's pivot into documentary with PORTRAIT OF WALLY, a 13-year legal thriller about a Nazi-looted painting; WRESTLING ALLIGATORS, centered on a chairman of the Seminole Tribe; and BUZZ, his HBO documentary about journalist Buzz Bissinger's reckoning with Caitlyn Jenner.  Then we arrive at FLAG DAY, Andrew and Melissa's first true co-directing effort, more than a decade in the making. The idea began when they fell in love with Three Oaks, Michigan's self-proclaimed biggest Flag Day parade while spending summers there to escape the Texas heat. Shot with 11 crews during a tense election year, the film is a vérité portrait of a divided community that still finds a way to show up for one another. At its heart is a sunset flag-raising ceremony, scored to Paul Simon's "America," that left the entire crew in tears. Along the way, we dig into what documentary filmmaking borrowed from Andrew's years in the theater, why FLAG DAY is exactly 75 minutes long, and why the Sheas are giving the film away to American Legions and libraries instead of chasing a paycheck. Plus, a Great Dane at Westminster, a mediator nobody wanted to use, and the possibility that FLAG DA...

EP070 - Don't Go Chasing the Truth w/ Jannike Åhlund

48 min

Welcome to the first-ever Doc Walks International! Keith treks to Sweden, to the tiny Baltic island of Fårö, where INGMAR BERGMAN built his creative base. Keith's there shooting for his new documentary, BERGMAN IN DALLAS, about the filmmaker's forgotten 1981 visit to Texas — enjoying an artist's residency at the Bergman Estate. And this journey into the world of Ingmar Bergman brought Keith to this week's guest, Jannike Åhlund, founder of  the Bergman Week festival and chairperson of the Bergman Center, a cultural space and museum here on Fårö. Jannike reflects on time spent with Bergman, going back to her days as a film critic and editor at the Swedish Film Institute's CHAPLIN magazine. And she's got the stories: the convenience-store pitch that birthed Bergman Week, the actual AI chatbot version of Bergman she's had to sit across from, and why "chasing the truth" through Bergman's autobiography is a fool's errand. We dig deep into the making of PERSONA — pitched in a single sentence — plus, why WILD STRAWBERRIES might be his most perfect film, and how the mother/daughter conflict of AUTUMN SONATA hits Jannike hardest, personally. And she lays out why Bergman had almost no direct disciples.  Jannike also opens up about co-directing CITIZEN SCHEIN, her own documentary about Harry Schein, the Holocaust survivor who basically invented Swedish film funding and made Bergman's career a possibility. This episode doubles as a deep dive bit of research for Keith and his doc, and a peek into the life of a cinematic legend; it's a different sort of Doc Walk, and we think you're gonna dig it. Along the way: Ruben Östlund's double Palme d'Or run (TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, THE SQUARE); shoutouts to filmmakers Bo Widerberg, Jan Troell, Lars von Trier, and Joachim Trier; and Jannike's gateway film (hint: it's French, black-and-white, and involves 400 of something). Plus: windmills, thatched-roof hovels, and Swedish sheep.  Next time, we're back stateside with Andrew and Melissa Sh...

EP069 - Good Cop, Bad Cop w/ Sam Wainwright Douglas & David Hartstein

45 min

We walk Hyde Park with longtime friends Sam Wainwright Douglas and David Hartstein — the co-directing team behind Blue Suitcase — and it is not a short story. Turns out it started at Slamdance 2006: David was editing ALONG CAME KINKY: TEXAS JEWBOY FOR GOVERNOR and needed an editor who actually knew Texas; Sam had THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS: BOUND TO LOSE playing the same festival. One carpetbagger recognizing another, basically. Before teaming up, David quietly built a run as a go-to producer — THE HAPPY POET, a Venice Biennale College Cinema slot for BARRACUDA — while Sam directed and edited on his own path, making CITIZEN ARCHITECT, HONKY TONK HEAVEN: THE LEGEND OF THE BROKEN SPOKE and NONO A DOCUMENTARY, among many others.  Then they finally co-directed together: FADERS UP: THE JOHN AIELLI EXPERIENCE, a loving portrait of the KUT radio legend that started as a short film, went viral off his estate-sale footage, and ended in a standing ovation and an Audience Award at the Paramount during SXSW. From there the pattern holds — a work-for-hire deep dive into Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips (LUV YA BUM!) and a gorgeous, prescient border-art doc, THROUGH THE REPELLENT FENCE, about Postcommodity's two-mile art installation stitching the US and Mexico together. Sam and David break down their "good cop, bad cop" creative rapport, the philosophy of "building consensus" instead of dictating on set, and why work-for-hire gigs can be exactly the thing that funds the passion projects. We close on a lightning round — 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and STOP MAKING SENSE as gateway drugs, fatherhood and AI as the things they can't stop thinking about. Two decades of friendship, a dozen-plus films between them, and they're still bickering like it's day one.  

EP068 - You Must Be Weird Guys w/ Chris Metzler

1 hr 7 min

Keith goes coastal this week, walking the foggy cliffs of Point Lobos, California with Bay Area filmmaker Chris Metzler—co-director of PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE and RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE. Chris and Keith go back to 2008, when they met at the PBS Producers Academy at WGBH, and their cohort reads like a Sundance roll call: S. Leo Chiang, Su Kim, Christine Turner and more. We dig into how a kid from Independence, Missouri who "hated documentaries" got converted by Errol Morris' FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL, picked up a Canon GL1 with his USC dorm-mate Jeff Springer, and spent four years in Final Cut Pro 1 making a comedy about an ecological disaster. Then the twist: a VHS-tape finds its way into the hands of John Waters, and PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA finds its voice. Chris breaks down exactly what that narration changed—tone, trust, discoverability, and a cult afterlife that now includes Joe Rogan and John Mulaney thinking it's a Waters film. We also get into the birth of RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE, why co-directing is a relay race (& a play on Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's "co-directors take-turns" model), and Chris's honest math on client work: independent films don't pay, but "award-winning independent filmmaker" brings clients to the table.  Along the way there are sea birds & sea lions (and barking filmmakers), a check-in with a plein air oil-painter, spotting a legendary Ansel Adams cypress, and enough rocky, coastal views and 65-degree breezes to cool you down no matter where you're tuning in from. Plus: insight into Angelo and Norwood from Fishbone, the early days of the Documentary Channel, and not-enough time spent talking about SFIndiefest and SFDocFest, the festivals that Chris helps program and run. DISCUSSION LINKS: PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA (2006) | RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE (2017) | EVERYDAY SUNSHINE: THE STORY OF FISHBONE (2011) | FAST, CHEAP & OUT OF CONTROL (1997)...

EP067 - Flip On the Porch Light w/ Margaret Brown

1 hr 8 min

We walk with Margaret Brown, director of BE HERE TO LOVE ME, THE ORDER OF MYTHS, THE GREAT INVISIBLE, DESCENDANT, and THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS, and winner of Peabody, Independent Spirit, SXSW and Sundance awards. She brings along Max Pickle, her nine-year-old wire-haired dachshund, who sets the pace: shade, water, and a hard stop whenever he's done. Margaret's deep in publicity mode on THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS, her HBO series about the 1991 killing of four teenage girls in North Austin. The series premiered on HBO in May, four episodes became five, and the case was solved just three weeks after the finale. THE YOGURT SHOP MURDERS is screening all week at AFS Cinema, culminating in a special September 3rd screening of Episode 5 featuring a Q&A with detectives from the case, moderated by Richard Linklater. Austin friends, don't miss this one! Margaret's blunt about the cost. She'd sworn off true-crime podcasts while making it. "Raise a toast to murder" felt like a cheap shot. She froze up in her first interview and holds one line firm: she's the filmmaker, not the detective. Ben has a better read. She flipped on a porch light, and everything came to it. Then the craft. How she and DP Justin Zweifach built a neon color language out of TWIN PEAKS and DRIVE without letting style flatten the families' honesty. Nobody had asked her about that until now. How A24 paid for crew therapy, a first in her career. How Claire, the UT student who tried to tell this story twenty years earlier, became her secret weapon and the show's spine. Ben traces the line from BE HERE TO LOVE ME through THE ORDER OF MYTHS, THE GREAT INVISIBLE and DESCENDANT, heavy places and buried histories, and Margaret resists the tidy version. This one was different, and she didn't know what she was signing up for. Then the Austin part. She and Pamela Colloff met at Brown and moved here in the '90s because they knew everyone at Emo's and could eat for a dollar at Quack's. Pam's "96 MINUTES" became TOWER,...

EP066 - Tale as Old as Time w/ Gene Gallerano

1 hr 4 min

Keith walks Hyde Park—with a detour into & across the Hancock Golf Course—with LA's Gene Gallerano.  An East Dallas kid raised on the humanities and Poor David's Pub, Gene's an actor-turned-producer-turned-Emmy-winning director, fresh off multiple wins at the Waco FF for THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, his Texas Monthly short about country singer Joshua Ray Walker. The origin story is a rom-com: Gene boards a flight, spots Joshua Ray, and talks to him for seven hours straight—true love at 30,000 feet. Then… nothing. 3 ½ months later, the text: Joshua Ray was diagnosed with cancer, off the road for eight months—do you still want to make something? No money, no camera, no crew. But Gene is all in. He builds a set in the loft at his mom's house, recruits Austin doc-maker Bob Ray to co-direct, and shoots the doc on his late friend Ross McDonnell's camera gear—"just don't change any of his settings, it'll feel like we have him." From there we work the whole map: moving to the East Village at 19, studying theater under Austin Pendleton, and turning a rejected-everywhere $13,000 "thin feature" — featuring Meryl Streep & Philip Seymour Hoffman among others—into a 19-minute short that premiered at Tribeca: STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON. Talking his way into hurricane zones with a camera. Producing AMERICAN SYMPHONY with Matt Heineman. And holding the boom for hours in COVID ICUs on THE FIRST WAVE, steadying himself on the repetition of his daughter's favorite lyrics: "a tale as old as time, Beauty and the Beast.". Plus: a first-ever DocWalks golf swing on a borrowed club, the broads of the East Village, Reed Birney and the break that came at 57, and the advice that sticks—if you have time to worry, you have time to work. DISCUSSION LINKS: THANK YOU FOR LISTENING (2026) | AMERICAN SYMPHONY (2023) | THE FIRST WAVE (2021) | STARRING AUSTIN PENDLETON (2016) | THE EYES OF ME (2009) | HELL ON WHEELS (2007) | COOL HAND LUKE (1967) | DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993) | THE DOORS (1991) | BEAUTY AN...

EP065 - I Don't Get Served My Own Movies w/ Penny Lane

1 hr 11 min

We were supposed to be in Central Park. We are not. It's raining so we're in Penny Lane's apartment, shoes off, with a cat named Luna auditioning for the role of "the action," and Flaco the Owl on the TV behind us. So much for a walking show. Penny's deep in what she calls PR season for WILD INSIDE, her new HBO doc about the Eurasian eagle-owl who broke out of the Central Park Zoo in 2023 and spent a year as the most photographed bird in New York. Then she tells us she barely shot it. A volunteer army of Central Park bird photographers had already amassed infinite footage, so Penny's crew went back and shot the reverse angles — Flaco's POV of the people watching Flaco — and rebuilt a whole year of seasons to match. "I don't think anyone understands that we just weren't there all the time." We go long on money and fear. Eight features in, a ninth half-funded, and her first thought is the tenth. That festivals and awards absolutely do matter, whatever people tell you. That this is her worst financial year and she has a hit, simultaneously. Plus: NUTS! and the Kansas goat-testicle doctor, cornering the cool dad market, the grad school shoot where Ben watched the levels all night and recorded nothing, Letterboxd as the only proof anyone's watching, EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP as the film that taught her to make one movie for the 1% and the 99% at once, dirty fuel versus the clean kind — and the thing she can't stop thinking about, which is how much of the internet is just bots talking to bots. DISCUSSION LINKS: WILD INSIDE (2026) | CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN (2023) | LISTENING TO KENNY G (2021) | HAIL SATAN? (2019) | NUTS! (2016) | OUR NIXON (2013) | EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010) | TARNATION (2003) | THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (2025) | MARY OLIVER: SAVED BY THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 We were supposed to be outside 01:15 Introducing Penny Lane 01:23 PR season for WILD INSIDE 02:02 Lynn, Massachusetts and the city of sin 02:58 Newbury Co...

EP064 - You Don't Need a Restaurant to Eat w/ David Liu

1 hr 1 min

Ben walks the lake at Mueller with David Liu—director, editor, producer, composer, and until 2024, an AI engineer. Fifteen-plus years in hardware, software, product design and machine learning, and then generative AI showed up and he decided he didn't want his name on where it was going. So he went looking for the one medium the technology can't enter without destroying it… documentary filmmaking. Here's the crazy part - he never wanted to be a filmmaker. He wanted to score films. A friend pointed out that nobody can stop you from composing your own movie, which meant he now had to go find a story worth telling. Enter Covid, four Austin restaurants and one pandemic. Seventeen shooting days spread across four years. Four years of grant pitches where everyone told him TO BE SEEN was impossible: four subjects, non-linear, no way. He shot it with almost no lighting, no rehearsals, and a rule about never overstaying his welcome, because the second take is where the artifice creeps in. Fiore Tedesco of L'Oca d'Oro handed him the title in the first sit-down, "you don't need a restaurant to eat, you need a restaurant to be seen." Plus a three-hour interview that became the spine of the film. Then the assembly came back all talking heads, and he sat stuck for a full year, thinking he had made a huge mistake. What unstuck him was filming  chefs mushroom-hunting in the Pacific Northwest. That short—HIDDEN STORIES–FORAGED AND FOUND—went to DOC NYC, two hundred people went dead silent, and he had his formula. Plus: cashing out the retirement account to finish, and finding out at the premiere— sitting next to chefs who had never seen a frame—that the thing is actually good. DISCUSSION LINKS: TO BE SEEN (2026) | HIDDEN STORIES–FORAGED AND FOUND (2024) | VALLEY UPRISING (2014) | FREE SOLO (2018) | CHEF'S TABLE (2015) | FIRE OF LOVE (2022) | THE FIRE WITHIN: A REQUIEM FOR KATIA AND MAURICE KRAFFT (2024) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Sync, sync—and a thesis: "my job is to discover the an...

EP063 - The Edge of Psychosis w/ Hisko Hulsing

1 hr 5 min

When Hisko Hulsing is in town, you grab your camera & mic, and hit the trail, ready to court controversy with the best oil-painting animator this side of the Netherlands. Hisko is the wild artist that doc-maker Brett Morgen trusted to paint the inside of Kurt Cobain's head for MONTAGE OF HECK. He's a director who's marshalled the talents of dozens of artists over multiple years to bring HARRY RENTS A ROOM (1999), SEVENTEEN (2003), and JUNKYARD (2012) to life. He's known for his uniform black shirts, his loose brush strokes, and his penchant to speak his mind… Keith and Hisko are two of the only roto-animation directors working in docs and that's not all they share: they've both collab'd with Austin-animation studio Minnow Mountain, and both have TV projects with BOJACK HORSEMAN producers Tornante. It's through Tornante that Hisko and Keith met, years ago, on the set of Amazon's UNDONE. Back when Hisko was —his words— in a panic. Flying between LA and Amsterdam and back again, directing Rosa Salazar and Bob Odenkirk live on a green screen taped-off like Lars Von Trier's DOGVILLE, then going home to tirelessly train ten painters to work in oil, in his personal style, Hisko's UNDONE was almost his own undoing. Three cities, a 17th-century atelier, and a show built on interdimensionality and ambiguity — he pitched the showrunners the dream sequences from ROSEMARY'S BABY and lived up to the premise.  He takes us back to his own relationship to art and psychosis: in Amsterdam, taking-up weed at age twelve, a grow operation at fifteen, skipping every class except philosophy and drawing, and hallucinating the world "in an oil painted manner." A journeyman animator/filmmaker, everything changed when JUNKYARD went viral and a cold email arrived from Brett Morgen. Suddenly he had four months to make what had taken him nearly six years. Sixty oil paintings, a team of collaborators, and a house of cards that crashed around him before finally winning-over Courtney Love and Fran...

EP062: Back To The Root w/ David Alvarado

1 hr 12 min

Spark up a big cigar with Ben and filmmaker David Alvarado in honor of  Luis Valdez, the central figure in Alvarado's new film AMERICAN PACHUCO (playing Austin's Cine Las Américas). A Dallas kid turned Brooklyn doc-maker, David found his calling twice: once when LA BAMBA (1987) showed him a Chicano family reaching the American dream, and again when a college cinéma-vérité class screened A TIME FOR BURNING (1966), which blew the medium wide open for him. We trace the whole arc—from a high-school dropout turned straight-A student at the University of North Texas, to the Stanford MFA where David partnered with Jason Sussberg and built Structure Films. Then there's the science trilogy: THE IMMORTALISTS (their $400K-and-ramen first feature), BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY (a record-smashing Kickstarter, now in the Library of Congress), and WE ARE AS GODS, the Stewart Brand doc that was spun into an eight-hour Audible series.  But right now, we're puffing smoke about AMERICAN PACHUCO, a tribute to a personal hero—Luis Valdez, the playwright behind ZOOT SUIT and LA BAMBA. The doc won the U.S. Audience Award at Sundance this year amid ICE-raid headlines, and David makes the case that the Chicano story is the American story—right down to the cigar in our hands, pure American tobacco the Maya smoked before Columbus set foot on these shores. This one goes deep (to the indigenous root) as we hit the trail and take hits on these stogies with Sundance-winner David Alvarado.   DISCUSSION LINKS: AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ (2026) | THE IMMORTALISTS (2014) | BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY (2017) | WE ARE AS GODS (2021) | LA BAMBA (1987) | ZOOT SUIT (1981) | A TIME FOR BURNING (1966) | TRUE CONVICTION (2017) | OFF THE CHARTS: THE SONG-POEM STORY (2003) | THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (2007) | HORRIBLE BOSSES (2011) | FOUR CHRISTMASES (2008) | SALESMAN (1969) | PRIMARY (1960) | PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002) | YOUNG GUNS (1988) | I AM BIG BIRD: THE CAROLL SPINNEY STORY (2015) ...

EP061 - Log Off and Hang Out w/ Lauren Hough

1 hr 1 min

We walk Austin's Boggy Creek Trail with acclaimed memoirist Lauren Hough — from a childhood spent in a cult to Air Force vet to ex-cable technician; and now, she's the writer whose viral essay about fixing people's cable got read 8 million times in a single weekend. Lauren's backstory is so enormous it usually eats a whole interview: she grew up in the Children of God, got run out of the military under Don't Ask Don't Tell (they torched her car), flipped a coin between Atlanta and DC, and told dumb cable-guy stories at the Iron Bear until one of them turned into a book. That book, LEAVING ISN'T THE HARDEST THING, made her a New York Times bestseller and got Cate Blanchett to narrate the audiobook — and, yes, she brought Cate to the Iron Bear. Now book two, MONSTER OF A LAND, is days from release and Lauren is, in her words, throwing up about it. We get into the terror of the follow-up, why she loaded her very cute dog Woody Guthrie into a Dodge van and drove the country like Steinbeck's TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY, and what she actually found out there — not the screaming internet, but hunters in Georgia helping a stranger find a campsite and neighbors defending neighbors when ICE rolled into Minneapolis. Along the way: the cult was boring (too many guitars, bad Bob Dylan rip-offs, one paragraph of hard-won Civil War research), the octagon on the White House lawn is sponsored by Monster Energy, and the cure for all of it might just be to log off and go hang out. Plus: worry monsters in a little free library, why she can't stop muttering about that octagon, and why chasing one good sentence feels like a serial killer chasing a high. DISCUSSION LINKS: MONSTER OF A LAND (2026) | LEAVING ISN'T THE HARDEST THING (2021) | TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY (1962) | CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (2003) | SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) | IDIOCRACY (2006) | THE CIVIL WAR (1990) | KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL (2000) | EDUCATED (2018) | THE SLIP (2025) | CATCH THE DEVIL (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Becoming the po...

EP060 - Angels Watching Over Me w/ Ya'Ke Smith

1 hr 5 min

Take a spirited walk though East Austin, Black History, and the Texas State Cemetery with filmmaker, educator, and self-described activist-artist Ya'Ke Smith—on Juneteenth week, no less. We kick off our walk under a Moonlight Tower and basically never stop moving: past Franklin Barbecue (pour one out for the old Ben's Barbecue), over to the Victory Grill, and into a cash-deal for some Bass Reeves-inspired street art. Ya'Ke walks Keith through CYCLES OF RESILIENCE, his new doc chasing a Juneteenth bike ride across Austin's erased and revitalized Black landmarks. We get into JUNETEENTH: FAITH AND FREEDOM, his PBS doc, and the role of an activist and an artist in search of community. Ya'Ke explains why he refuses the "documentary filmmaker" label, because "film is film" of course—thank you, Agnes Varda. And it's only fitting that our wander into the Texas State Cemetery (a DocWalks first) becomes the backdrop for a discussion on the spiritual side of filmmaking and how Ya'Ke's new hybrid short ANGELS WATCHING OVER ME grew out of Paula White's "African angels" prayer for Trump and the gutting of DEI on his own campus.  Angels, maybe ghosts… and graveside visits with Stephen F. Austin (father of Texas), Sarah Weddington (Roe v. Wade), Bill Witliff (Lonesome Dove screenwriter), Barbara Jordan (legislative pioneer), and Cedric Benson (Longhorns legend) serve to remind us what matters as artists, and storytellers revealing untold histories and creating opportunities for empathy. Ya'Ke and Keith cover a lot of territory landing with the former's origin story: as an 11-year-old in San Antonio watching BOYZ N THE HOOD and knowing, right then, that movie-making was the way. Plus: 4000 Black Juneteenth liberators, ideas that "impregnate" you until you birth them, the spiritual battle Ya'Ke thinks we're all fighting, inspiration via Ernest Dickerson's 10-minute storyboards on THE DEUCE, and why—even in despair—you've got to find the joy.  His advice for filmmakers? In the words...

EP059 - Don't Listen to Me About Anything w/ Isaac Gale

41 min

We hit the streets of South by Southwest with Isaac Gale—director, artist, and one-half of the Minneapolis noise outfit Marijuana Deathsquads, in town to play the fest with his band. Isaac's the kind of guy who'd rather break a piece of software than master it, and that restless, try-anything energy runs through everything he makes. We wind through Ben's old neighborhood and retrace how the two first met—around WINNEBAGO MAN, which Isaac's partner JoLynn Garnes cut an early version of—then dig into SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED, the gloriously weird doc Isaac co-directed with the famously camera-shy Ryan Olson. It premiered at South by in 2024 and got scooped up by Magnolia Pictures for a theatrical run. We trace the whole origin story: a cold call to Ryan's label (Totally Gross National Product), a 2017 trip to shoot one sad music video, and a house so perfect—Swamp Dogg, Moogstar, and Guitar Shorty living together like a psychedelic Brady Bunch—that they never wanted to leave. The pool getting painted becomes the anchor, so everything else (Mike Judge, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Kenny, a blink-and-you-miss-it Yo La Tengo cameo) gets to be as chaotic as it wants. Isaac walks us through the hand-built AI intro—a Swamp Dogg model trained on a PC in his bedroom and iterated for a year and a half—and why he's fine getting his hands dirty with tools everyone loves to hate. Then the good stuff for emerging filmmakers: make it like a band, keep your crew close, and if you can't find money, make it without money. Plus CRUMB and AMERICAN MOVIE as gateway drugs, a dog named Ricky, the first time in 50+ episodes we've run out of card space, and why Minneapolis—community and all—is the thing Isaac can't stop thinking about. DISCUSSION LINKS: SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED (2024) | THE FEARLESS FREAKS (2005) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | CRUMB (1994) | AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Markers, selfie sticks, and SXSW sunburn 01:00 Ben's old neighborhood and how he and I...

EP058 - The Jellyfish Died w/ Juli Berwald

1 hr 11 min

Meet Juli Berwald—a marine biologist turned science writer and the author of an invertebrate page-turner—she's the founder of a coral-reef nonprofit in Honduras, aaaaand she's producing her first doc. Throughout our waterfront walk at Ladybird Lake Juli opens up about her adventures in science writing—how getting fired off a book project (& replaced by Elizabeth Kolbert) inspired Juli to create her own destiny and finally write her own book. What follows is a masterclass in turning science into memoir called SPINELESS—a jellyfish book secretly structured like a jellyfish lifecycle, complete with a fever dream that sent her to Japan to find the world's biggest jellyfish (spoiler: it died right in front of her). We dig into "hiding behind the facts," the boldness it takes to put yourself on the page, and the best creative-accountability advice we've heard yet: combine a tight writing group with Elizabeth Gilbert's "take your project on a date," add in some John August-style sprints while following a roommate's admonition to "write the worst book you can—"and you're on your way. Theres's a whole lot of science, a bunch of laughs, and some doc-stuff in this one too. THE REBEL REEF: SEEDS OF HOPE is Juli's hopeful short doc about a reef to remember and divemaster Christian Carias, whose own healing becomes the heart of the film. Plus composer Chad Cannon (AMERICAN FACTORY, JOIN OR DIE), a $100K biobank dream, and perhaps an answer to the question of "how do you get to Symphony Space?" Also: An entire taxonomy of recumbent coots; shoutout to a Charles and Ray Eames numerically inspired mid-century film; and the official-yet-disputed name of a celebrated Austin footbridge. And yes—Juli already has another book on the way… DISCUSSION LINKS: THE REBEL REEF: SEEDS OF HOPE (2026) | POWERS OF TEN (1977) | AMERICAN FACTORY (2019) | JOIN OR DIE (2023) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | SPINELESS (2017) | LIFE ON THE ROCKS (2022) | THE SHELL SEEKER (2026) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 High fives...

EP057 - Don't Make a Documentary (It'll Ruin Your Career) w/ Luke Korem

1 hr 7 min

We hit the boardwalk with Luke Korem—the Emmy-winning documentary director behind DEALT, MILLI VANILLI, and ACTION—and somewhere between a guy blasting EDM off a portable speaker and the bats under the bridge, Luke hands us a filmmaking philosophy worth bottling: it's all the same muscle. Doc, series, scripted—storytelling is storytelling, and the trick is knowing a series is a sprint and a feature is a marathon. Luke walks us through the whole arc: his accidental first feature LORD MONTAGU (a chairman, a castle, fifty grand, and four guys who'd never made a film), the SXSW-winning DEALT about blind card magician Richard Turner, and how the real story is never the hook—when it comes to DEALT, it's a man learning to embrace his weakness. We get the gospel of "no control" (the studio that passed on MILLI VANILLI, then came begging six months later), why he prays his way through the gambles, and why AI makes real human stories more valuable, not less. Then Ben hijacks his own podcast with the greatest one-that-got-away in doc history: the time he tried to con conman Frédéric Bourdin—subject of THE IMPOSTER — into a movie, got double-crossed, taunted by a Photoshopped postcard from the French Riviera… and learned years later the postcard was forged by his own friend in Paris. Luke's verdict: cut that out and make it its own episode. Plus: Luke's mom's catering empire, his magician dad, the gateway drug of renting EDTV, and plenty of advice from a man with zero social media. DISCUSSION LINKS: LORD MONTAGU (2013) | DEALT (2017) | ACTION (2019) | THE NEW YORK TIMES PRESENTS (2020) | MILLI VANILLI (2023) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | THE IMPOSTER (2012) | CHOP & STEELE (2022) | HIGH HOPES (2023) | CHEER (2020) | LAST CHANCE U (2016) | EDTV (1999) | FIELD OF DREAMS (1989) | THE KARATE KID (1984) | ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (1994) | JURASSIC PARK (1993) | WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN (1941) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Two reluctant "documentary influencers" 01:00 Meet Luke — DEALT, the SXSW win...

EP056 - Walk to the Next Block w/ Barlow Jacobs

48 min

Barlow Jacobs says: Walk to the Next Block.. easy to say when you're sitting there, not-walking on DocWalks. It's day three of the AFS Doc Intensive, and we close out our run in the room for a sit-down with actor-turned-documentarian Barlow Jacobs—a guy we've been hearing about for 20 years ever since he burst out of Sundance with LOW AND BEHOLD in 2007. Barlow brings his doc-debut, THE VOYAGE OUT to Austin for Doc Days. Shot on 16mm, fully off-grid, on a nine-day elk hunt deep in the mountains—the gear hauled in on pack goats, lenses wrapped in towels inside Igloo coolers because the Pelican cases wouldn't fit, this is a unique production setup for a unique doc, and all that extra work really pays off—every frame looks like an oil painting. Keith's on the hunt for answers, but Barlow's quick to point out that THE VOYAGE OUT isn't a hunting film. It's a reckoning with mortality, kicked off by a 2009 brain tumor and  later, a head-on collision with a dump truck, two life changing events that had Barlow questioning his own relationship to life & death. Barlow finds answers thanks to his film's three leads:  hunting guide Marc Warnke (Bruce Willis meets John Wayne with a philosophy degree), off-grid survivalist Callie Russell (you might've seen her on ALONE), and fellow seeker Mansal Denton. We dig into the technical insanity—film canisters kept warm in a teepee, a rain-soaked tent, a lab calling in a panic about celluloid that smelled like smoke—and then there's the executive producers who showed up with support, including Chris & Eleanor Columbus's Maiden Voyage Pictures, Ley Line, and Sons of Rigor Films. All indie filmmaking is a roll of the dice, but Barlow owes a special thanks to the pro gambler whose $2-million poker win came through just in time to float the shoot. He may be a first-time doc director, but Barlow's a festival and indie vet, and he's flipping the script on distribution. And this is where we can all take notes: how he's self-releasing to 75 the...

EP055 - Chief Emotions Officer w/ Alisa Payne

51 min

Alisa Payne cannot be stopped… certainly not by a little rain. When the downpour chases us indoors, we're lucky enough to post up in a cozy podcast studio at Austin Public—the public-access station where, Alex Jones got his start—and the home to the Austin Film Society Documentary Intensive, where the Oscar-nominated producer is serving as a mentor. You may know Alisa as the producer behind Geeta Gandbhir's body-cam-footage based, 'Stand Your Ground' Netflix doc THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR. But it's just one (important) stop of a dynamic career that took "20 years to be an overnight success." Flashback to the late 90s when young Alisa, a recent biochem grad quit the lab to chase Queen Latifah, presenting 500 petitions that convinced one queen to hire another. From that point on it's been nonstop. Alisa made her name as a producer, showrunner, and a production company co-founder known for her focus on pushing the documentary form. Check out STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING with Roger Ross Williams (that wasn't exactly THE MANDALORIAN); BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, an ambitious production at the terrifying height of COVID; and KATRINA: COME HELL AND HIGH WATER with Spike Lee, Samantha Knowles and future business partner, Sam Pollard. Alisa makes the case for the producer as "chief emotions officer"—and her role as the parent of everyone in the credits. What does that mean? Shielding directors from notes, restoring the historical record when journalism can't be trusted, and making film more equitable in front of and behind the camera—those are just some of her responsibilities.  This one's full of energetic wisdom and stories of production mishaps and their solutions, including: a tension-building bodega showdown over some purloined PPE fronted by one tough producer on a mission, because Alisa Payne will not be stopped! Plus, we take a swing through the AFS Doc Intensive and meet the fellows and mentors that Alisa and Keith have been Intensive-ing with; And Alisa shares her passio...

EP054 - Stories Are Everywhere w/ Pete Muller

1 hr 10 min

We duck inside for the first time ever — into the Blanton Museum of Art, because it's pouring in Austin and Pete Muller had the brilliant idea to bring our show into a gallery. Pete is the National Geographic photographer behind BUCKS HARBOR, his five-years-in-the-making debut feature about lobster fishermen in Downeast Maine, premiering at Berlinale and playing Doc Days at the Austin Film Society. We wander past Jacob Lawrence and Andrew Wyeth and Jerry Bywaters' OIL FIELD GIRLS while Pete walks us through the family that made him: his grandfather Leon Kelly (one of the pioneers of American surrealism), his art-conservator father (who once paid him to spit into a beaker so he could clean centuries-old paintings), and the paternity bombshell in his twenties that preceded his career embedded in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East. We dig into BUCKS HARBOR's sea critter metaphors, the editor Noel Paul who shaped hundreds of hours with a special structure, the Hiss Golden Messenger song that lands just as it's needed, and Pete's gentle insistence that "fly on the wall" is a lie — the camera is always doing something. Plus: the most admissible form of male feeling and why art belongs to everyone (no whispering required). DISCUSSION LINKS: BUCKS HARBOR (2026) | THE FEARLESS FREAKS (2005) | BOMBAY BEACH (2011) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Whispering into the Blanton — our first indoor episode 01:00 Jacob Lawrence and the Great Migration 03:00 Andrew Wyeth's SEA LEGS, painting the same people for decades 06:00 Pete's grandfather Leon Kelly — American surrealism 08:00 Crescent Fellowship, Paris 1925, André Breton 11:00 Why Pete won't call himself an artist 13:00 Mom the nighttime newspaper photographer in Lynn, MA 14:00 Dad the art conservator (and the beaker of spit) 17:00 Making art about practical, rough-and-tumble people 20:00 Thomas Hart Benton, folk + high-brow, painting on board 25:00 OIL FIELD GIRLS by Jerry Bywaters 28:00 How BUCKS HARBOR began — five years...

EP053 - I'm No Good on My Own w/ Bradley Jackson

56 min

Ben walks Glassell Park in L.A. with Bradley Jackson—screenwriter, novelist, and the documentary writer/producer behind FACING NOLAN, DEALT, MILLI VANILLI, and the Showtime sports-betting docuseries ACTION. Bradley leads Ben up his neighborhood  hill as he details exactly how he ended up in a "premium economy" English castle filming a bisexual British aristocrat for his very first doc—and why he never left doc-making behind.  Bradley lays out his role as creative-producer in his partnerships with director (& future DocWalks guest) Luke Korem. We dig into doc storytelling and why structure is the only lever a doc filmmaker really controls. And he shares some b.t.s. on what it took to inspire Nolan Ryan's family to trust him with the Hall of Famer's legacy. Ben's in heaven with all this baseball talk—Bradley's got a take on Pete Rose, and we learn why a fastball that "rises" is the most American story ever told.  A teamplayer at heart, Bradley admits he's a B-minus alone, but an A-plus with collaborators—a working theory he applies to writing partners, doc partners, and the kid-juggling-bills life of a working filmmaker post-pandemic. He explains the L.A. before/after split (zero in-person meetings in a year), how he wrote his INTRAMURAL screenplay at 6:45 a.m. before clocking in at a Texas edtech job, and why your first draft is always the scrambling of a madman.  Plus: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM as a deeply unexpected gateway drug for a guy who writes comedies and baseball docs, Bill Hader as a too-intimidating dream collaborator, and Mike Schur as the better-looking, more successful 4.0 version of himself. This one's a walk-and-talk for filmmakers who juggle, rewrite, and trust that life is funnier than anything they could make up. DISCUSSION LINKS: REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2010) | INTRAMURAL (2014) | DEALT (2017) | BARRY (2018) | ACTION (2019) | THE LAST DANCE (2020) | FACING NOLAN (2022) | MILLI VANILLI (2023) | MEGALOPOLIS (2024) | MEGADOC (2025...

EP052 - Make Bad Art w/ Jena Friedman

42 min

Let's get into the tragic side of comedy with documentarian, comedian, and Academy Award–nominated screenwriter Jena Friedman. The BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM co-writer is in town for the Moontower Comedy Festival to perform her hour-long stand-up about her mother's death. Two minutes in and we're deep into the grief, as the former DAILY SHOW correspondent talks about editing her own SundanceTV true-crime show, while pregnant, and dealing with her mother's illness and death. Jena and Keith have something in common—Keith lost his father 25 years ago—and she asks probing questions about his relationship with his dad, before and after his passing. She describes how her mom became her biggest career champion right when work was busiest, why grief comedy is "exposure therapy," and how a half-page Austin Chronicle headline once dubbed her THE MUSE OF MEDIOCRITY. (Her counter: "Mediocrity is my muse.") We dig into INDEFENSIBLE, her two-season SundanceTV true-crime show that nobody really wanted made, and Adult Swim's SOFT FOCUS WITH JENA FRIEDMAN, where she disarmed John McAfee in his own living room. Jena makes the case for bad art in the AI era: if your work isn't optimizable enough for the robots to scrape, then you're free. We talk THE REHEARSAL, the crepe myrtle as paint-by-numbers tree, why DocWalks badly needs a drone sponsorship, and how "improv was my rosebud". We squeeze a whole lot into this rambling, lakeside chat then grab a cortado at Revolution Coffee before Jena heads to the Paramount Theatre to perform. Then it's back to work on her EPSTEIN FILES BOOK CLUB podcast and heading home to her son. Plus: Letterman in 2011, Keith wielding two cams, how criticism can feel like a hug from mom, our shared affection for Kahane Corn Cooperman, and the power of pennies that show up exactly when you need them. DISCUSSION LINKS: NOT FUNNY (2023) | SOFT FOCUS WITH JENA FRIEDMAN (2018) | INDEFENSIBLE (2021) | BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIEFILM (2020) | THE REHEARSAL (2022) | W...

EP051 - Terrified Of Cheese w/ Bryan Storkel

49 min

We walk South by Southwest with director Bryan Storkel—HOLY ROLLERS, THE LEGEND OF COCAINE ISLAND, THE PEZ OUTLAW, ALABAMA SNAKE—in town to premiere I GOT BOMBED AT HARVEY'S, his new feature about the man who built a thousand-pound bomb and walked it into a Lake Tahoe casino in 1980. Keith's on vacation, so it's just Ben and Bryan, two directors aiming cameras at each other ("this is like a Beastie Boys video"). Ben's catcher finger is wrecked from yesterday's Sandlot game. Bryan's been on a pickleball tear in LA. We dig into how Bryan keeps making so many films—a Ken Griffey Jr. doc that fell apart the night before his first interview with Sir Mix-A-Lot, the AMC anthology TRUE CRIME STORY: SMUGSHOT (umbrella: "crimes of entitlement"), and a Hulk Hogan series now released to acclaim for Netflix. We trace his exodus from Oral Roberts University through HOLY ROLLERS (card-counting Christian pastors), FIGHT CHURCH (cage-fighting pastors), and ALABAMA SNAKE (the Pentecostal who tried to kill his wife with a rattlesnake)—each film quietly walking him further out of the faith he grew up in. The reenactment talk is the heart of it. Bryan walks us through the COCAINE ISLAND / PEZ OUTLAW method—cast the actual subject in their own reenactments, build a scripted-feeling rough cut from a documentary edit, then shoot the recreations like a narrative. The secret: be terrified the whole time it'll be cheesy. "That terror is the thing that makes it good." HARVEY'S, he tells us, snuck up on him as a father-son story underneath the heist. Plus: an annual dog-on-a-table photoshoot ambushes the walk, the empathy-machine theory of documentary, and why every prolific filmmaker should learn to edit first. DISCUSSION LINKS: AMERICAN MOVIE (1999) | OKIE NOODLING (2001) | HOME MOVIE (2001) | SUMMERCAMP! (2006) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | HOLY ROLLERS (2011) | LITTLE HOPE WAS ARSON (2013) | FIGHT CHURCH (2014) | THE BATTERED BASTARDS OF BASEBALL (2014) | NOBODY SPEAK: TRIALS OF THE FREE PR...

EP050 - We Follow the Heartbreak w/ Berndt Mader

1 hr 20 min

We mark 50 walks with business partner, co-conspirator, and professor of things cinematic—Berndt Mader, co-founder of The Bear and Ben's filmmaking better-half of nineteen years. Lady Bird Lake, placid gray spring weather, and Berndt tracing his arc from sandbag-slinging grip on David Gordon Green's GEORGE WASHINGTON to Austin's hybrid-film provocateur. The main event: the $2M Kid Rock documentary that was, until it wasn't. Berndt pulled Ben past "no way" and into Nashville, where Danny McBride's blessing got them into Bob Ritchie's house weeks before COVID locked everything down. Katie Steinbauer sewed a mask, Berndt drove up anyway, and they captured an apology scene where an aging rockstar says he's going to "try to sneak into heaven." Then June 2022 happened—a homophobic slur went viral, Roughhouse evacuated, Live Nation grabbed the hard drives, and MY NAME IS KID became a film that will never see daylight. We get into the art of directing real people through fake scenarios with BOOGER RED, Berndt's CLOSE-UP-inspired hybrid adaptation of Mike Hall's Texas Monthly exposé of the Mineola case, and how that story got a second life as the HBO docuseries HOW TO CREATE A SEX SCANDAL. Plus Werner Herzog impressions, the Pete Best of The Bear, a Richard Linklater dream collaboration, and the thesis statement for episode 50: "We follow the heartbreak." DISCUSSION LINKS: GEORGE WASHINGTON (2000) | BOOGER RED (2015) | HOW TO CREATE A SEX SCANDAL (2023) | CHOP & STEELE (2022) | CLOSE-UP (1990) | THE THIN BLUE LINE (1988) | C********R BLUES (1972) | SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY (1987) | A POEM IS A NAKED PERSON (1974) | WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE (1988) | APOCALYPSE NOW (1979) | 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) | MAKING A MURDERER (2015) | EASTBOUND & DOWN (2009) | THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES (2019) TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 50 episodes deep with Berndt Mader 02:00 Naming The Bear (before the TV show) 05:00 19 years of the production company 06:00 Richardson origins and the Ge...

EP049 - The Trust Fall w/ Sharon Liese

51 min

Kansas City here we come! Well, just Ben this time, revisiting old haunts along the Tomahawk Creek trail with Sharon Liese—Emmy-winning director of THE FLAGMAKERS and TRANSHOOD. Sharon proves you don't need an LA zip code to premiere at Sundance—her new feature SEIZED—a nuanced, complicated portrait of what happened when police raided a small-town Kansas newspaper—was a must-see at Park City this January. A film about justice and freedom of expression is a pressing tale today and Sharon walks us through the messy reality of telling a story where nobody's quite the hero you expect. We dig into the two-and-a-half year journey of making the film, the year it took to get suspicious small-towners to open up, and the 98-year-old newspaper co-owner whose defiant attitude captured on police body cam footage will absolutely wreck you. The serendipity is real: mid-walk, we stumble onto gnome houses on the trail—a callback to Sharon's gorgeous short THE GNOMIST, which was filmed on this very path. We trace her origin story from a Kansas marketing gig to following 12 girls through high school for HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, getting an agent by name-dropping an RJ Cutler meeting, and the fateful Facebook message that led to Ben & Sharon working together on PINK COLLAR CRIMES. Sharon opens up about TRANSHOOD, following four trans kids for five years on HBO, and the devastating new Kansas legislation that just dropped overnight. The conversation turns to the state of an industry where good storytelling is getting squeezed from every direction and Ben gets real about his eight-year Onion documentary saga. But the vibe stays warm—Sharon's grandkids just moved to KC, the crowded table she always dreamed of is full, and MAD HOT BALLROOM is confirmed as a gateway drug film that changed Sharon's life. Plus: the parents who thought they'd get a VHS tape and ended up on national TV. DISCUSSION LINKS: SEIZED (2026) | THE GNOMIST (2015) | TRANSHOOD (2020) | THE FLAGMAKERS (2022) | HIGH SC...

EP048 - Criminally Open Minded w/ Daniel Lombroso

1 hr 5 min

Let's talk about MANHOOD—specifically, Daniel Lombroso's startling new doc about the growing world (haha) of penis girth enhancement. You heard that right. This is the penis injection movie that SXSW audiences (& DocWalks guests) won't stop talking about. At 33 years old, the Brooklyn-based Lombroso considers himself to be "criminally open minded" (his words, then immediately walked back), and the kind of filmmaker who waits seven months in a D.C. parking lot to get one lunch meeting. He's done it before. With WHITE NOISE, his 2020 alt-right portrait, he embedded with Lauren Southern, Mike Cernovich, and Richard Spencer for years, as a Jewish grandson of two Holocaust survivors. With NINA & IRENA, his New Yorker short, he hovered around Errol Morris until Errol called him back: "Daniel, your grandmother's a f*****g incredible character." We dig into MANHOOD start to finish: the Dallas entrepreneur trying to make girth injections as common as Botox, the OnlyFans model who got botched and bared everything anyway, and the standup-dad of five whose reckless choices break our hearts. Daniel maps the access game—turns out women and queer execs got the pitch instantly, while straight guys at the top kept killing the deals—his journalism roots at The Atlantic and The New Yorker, the Sheila Nevins stamp of approval at 87, and how Penny Lane and World of Wonder rallied around him when he was unemployed, depressed, and flying Spirit Airlines back to Dallas to film alone. He's funny about his Republican father calling MANHOOD "a beautiful commentary on modern America." But he's serious about the male loneliness epidemic, the manosphere, and the smartphone-induced inadequacy that pushes men to spend their savings on the one thing they don't need more of.  Plus: how to bother Errol Morris in a parking lot, the lightning-round answer that made us laugh—"give yourself reps"—and a brief detour through 2 Girls 1 Cup we did not see coming.     Discussion Links MANHOOD (2026) | W...

EP047 - Life Is One Big Circle @ the AFS party at SXSW

1 hr 8 min

This is one packed parking lot full of filmmakers! Why? Because it's SXSW—and time once again for Austin Film Society's annual party. And we're throwing you right into the thick of it, to connect with both visiting and local doc-makers making the scene, We kick it all off with the cutest damn Willie Nelson cameo you can imagine… no not the nonagenarian multi-hyphenate hero, but a baby goat named for the GOAT. Follow that with a controversial AI take from our old pal Bart Weiss, and this hometown shindig is off to a typically "weird" Austin start.  Inside the party, we link up with Bianca Giaever and Ora de Kornfeld, the directors behind STALIN BOYS—a comedy doc about middle school boys in Marathon, TX who are deeply, unapologetically obsessed with Joseph Stalin. Their short took two awards at the fest and is heating up the circuit on its way to NY Times Op-Docs. We connect with Dallas drone-ster Monika Watkins, an alum of the AFS Doc Intensive. She has a lot to say about overcoming grief through vulnerability and making art—with updates on her animated short DABNEY, and intro'ing a new project: LOVE MO'. We finally meet Bradley Jackson, whose narrative feature STAGES is premiering here with Austin musician David Ramirez in the lead. Then our intrepid co-producer Dayton Thompson makes his on-camera debut and bumps into Bev Chukwu, who drops the line of the night—"Life is one big circle."  Quick shots of Sarah-Ann Mockbee, Amy Bench, Chelsea Hernandez, and a dog named Buster—plus conversations with Jonathan Green, Riley Engemoen, and Samuel Diaz Fernandez round out the episode. And we close out with Sarah Kuck who offers insight into the Austin Doc Makers Club and kicking off a new chapter with the Video Consortium (so much to discuss here and a signal that we need to book Sarah for her own episode). Goats, drones, dictators, and community. SXSW at AFS… one big circle it is. Discussion Links STALIN BOYS (2026) | THE GRANDFATHER PUZZLE (2026) | SOCIAL ANIMALS (2018)...

EP046 - Get The Cowboys On The Horses w/ Jess Harrop Of Sandbox Films

1 hr 5 min

This one is scientific! We're thrilled to take a walk on Austin's wildside with one of the hardest working Executive Producers in the doc game today. Meet Jess Harrop, executive director of Sandbox Films—the science-meets-cinema studio behind FATHOM, FIRE OF LOVE, ANDRÉ IS AN IDIOT, and a jaw-dropping slate of genre-bending docs. Jess takes a break from her SXSW responsibilities to share her journey from a biology degree and a theater background (and zero film school) to a gig associate producing NOVA and eventually launching and running one of the most exciting studios in documentary. We dig into Sandbox's origin story as a subsidiary of the Simons Foundation, the philosophy of making science films that feel like romances and thrillers and comedies, and even what it's like to give notes to Werner Herzog.  When our walk strays from the relative safety of the hike & bike trail, into a decidedly more "stabby" unexplored corner of downtown, Ben gets a little jumpy but Jess goes with the flow, an unflappable NY'er in action. We have lots of questions about her experience working with so many great directors, including the aforementioned Herzog… and she shares the Bavarian rogue's all-time great filmmaking note—"You've got to get the cowboys on the horses"—in other words: just get the story going. Jess details how Sara Dosa's FIRE OF LOVE was born from an archival gold mine and a COVID pivot. And we dig into this year's ANDRÉ IS AN IDIOT (in theaters now) and the Sundance 2026 award-winner, THE LAKE. Plus insight into: the world of mushrooms via DAUGHTERS OF THE FOREST; Jess's newest hobby (bejeweling costumes); her dream of talking to animals (not unlike the plot of Sandbox's FATHOM); and a brief mention of time spent working with Bill Nye the Science Guy.    Discussion Links: ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2007) | HUMAN NATURE (2020) | FIREBALL: VISITORS FROM DARKER WORLDS (2020) | FATHOM (2021) | ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE (2021) | FIRE OF LOVE (2022) | ANDRÉ IS A...

EP045 - Art Can Never Be Satisfied w/ Holly Herrick

1 hr 16 min

Holly Herrick is all about the film-life—as the Head of Film for Austin Film Society and Doc Days festival founder / programmer, she's at the center of Austin's film community, but this SXSW finds Holly wearing a new hat: first-time documentary producer.  FIRST THEY CAME FOR MY COLLEGE, directed by Patrick Bresnan, chronicles the 2023 "hostile takeover"—their words—of New College of Florida by Ron DeSantis and his Christo-fascist cronies. Holly's a New College alum. She saw the press getting the story wrong and did what any reasonable person in her position would do: panicked. But a call to Margaret Brown gave her some confidence, and together with fellow alum Harry Hanbury, decided to make a movie. No big deal… hahaha… just squeeze-in a first feature with a full-time job running a non-profit and two-screen cinema, overseeing awards shows and grants, & two invite-only artists' labs (scripted & doc), all while raising two small kids. Holly Herrick is living proof: with enough caffeine, anything's possible…. We love this walk, because we never get enough time with Holly (busy busy lady), but today she's all ours as we stroll through the flowering native plants of Mueller Lake Park taking inspiration from this powerhouse of gettin' shit done—psychosis, be damned.  Plus: Dave Hickey on art and laziness, Jean Luc Godard on women, and Holly on: knowing your why.     DISCUSSION LINKS FIRST THEY CAME FOR MY COLLEGE (2026) | A WOMAN IS A WOMAN (1961) | BREATHLESS (1960) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | TOWER (2016) | JOIN OR DIE (2023)     TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Caffeine-induced psychosis as a lifestyle philosophy 00:49 Introducing Holly Herrick and Austin Film Society 03:30 AFS origin story—Linklater, the old airport, and Mueller 08:30 AFS Cinema as Austin's repertory art house 11:30 Doc Lab and Doc Days—what they are and how they work 17:30 "Community"—the most used word on Doc Walks 21:30 Austin Public—public access TV as democratic infrastructure 26:00 Programming as art, no...

EP044 - SXSW Chaos Coordinator w/ Claudette Godfrey

1 hr 3 min

If you ever wanted to get into the head of a premier festival programmer, this is your chance! Meet SXSW VP of Film & TV, Claudette Godfrey, a self-described Chaos Coordinator and all-around boss. Keith's flyin' solo while Ben's off shooting commercials (allegedly) and you won't want to miss the chance to walk & doc with Claudette today, on the 40th anniversary SXSW kickoff. An ADHD/OCD whirlwind of ideas and observations, Claudette is a trip—and she's ready to talk all things SXSW and highlight this year's best of the fest… But first we'll check-in on Claudette's origin story: native Austinite, UT film student, SX intern in the Matt Dentler days, shorts programmer-extraordinaire under Janet Pierson, and now ascendant head of all things film & television at Austin's far-reaching culture fest. She's got intel to share—everything that's different now that the fest is 7 days instead of 10. She breaks down what actually gets a short film into a festival (pro tip: make an animated or a doc short—there's just a 0.4% acceptance rate for narrative), why docs are getting "more samey by the day," and why the overnight success myth is a comfortable lie filmmakers have been telling themselves since the early days of Quentin Tarantino. All that in preparation for the main event as Claudette rapid-fires through the 2026 doc slate with obvious glee: Sea Monkeys, classified Bigfoot footage, penis injections, NDA whistleblowers, the world's first extinct glacier, and a film about Kentucky weed farmers. Keith confesses he's in development on seven projects and none of them are close to done, so it'll be a few years before he's submitting to the fest. But Claudette supports his idea of making a short… Plus: thoughts on Ben's role as Claudette's film prof; shout out to Trey Edward Schults' KRISHA and Jeremy Workman's SECRET MALL APARTMENT; Johnny Cash & Beck & Janis Joplin all at Keith's first SX (class of '94); and cameos from future DocWalks guest Sarah Kuck and Pickles the dog! T...

EP043 - The Nonfiction Hotlist w/ Anna Rau

1 hr 1 min

We're takin' it to the streets, sure—but this week we're also takin' it to the list: the Nonfiction Hotlist, with producer Anna Rau. Anna's got the scoop on this new endeavor to connect nonfic producers with money and distribution, and she's here to share just what the Nonfiction Hotlist is and where it's going. It started when former ESPN producer Adam Neuhaus made a viral LinkedIn post that inspired a community initiative championing unreleased nonfiction storytelling. And it's growing quickly. Anna explains their brand new Yahoo partnership that's creating a real home for short films that deserve more than a life relegated to the purgatory of the filmmaker's hard drive. Anna has a lot going on right now! She's been producing commercials and doc-series for years, with her husband Corbett and their company The Range, but she realized there was a language on the finance side of this industry that she still needed to learn. So she enrolled in an MBA program to decode the business, and to find some creative ways to grow… and that growth has yielded big ideas in the form of westward expansion. Anna reveals that she is turning a grad-school assignment into an active business plan by putting an offer in on the legendary Palace Theater in Marfa, TX—the single-screen showroom where GIANT premiered, in the town where Anna and Corbett got married, and where they've got big plans to build a cinema-slash-production-hub from the ground up. Producer, MBA grad, entrepreneur, and Media Mogul—now that's a hot list.  Plus: a ufo-shaped gazebo on the shores of Lady Bird Lake; we eye a colorful ceramic cow; talk abundance over scarcity; and walk away feeling like the future of nonfiction is in very good hands. ***Also deadline for the Yahoo initiative is this Friday if folks want to get something in under the wire, there's an info Q+A happening tomorrow on instagram live over @nonfictionhotlist  Discussion Links: GIANT (1956) | JAWS (1975) | CALIFORNIA'S GOLD (1991–2012) | ARTBOUN...

EP042 - Meet The People w/Ben & Keith at Sundance

1 hr 37 min

Park City, 2026 —  we showed up without films, without press credentials, but still… ready to make our DocWalk dreams a reality. Welcome to the last of 4 episodes at Sundance: a walk down Main Street, where we hobnob with the best of the fest, greet the people, and do everything we can to stay warm in sub-freezing temps without a single movie ticket in sight. This year at Sundance everyone was looking back (at the legacy of Robert Redford and what the fest has been) while still looking forward (to where we'll be in a year… Boulder, Colorado). We catch-up on the festival BizBuzz™: it's all M&A! Mergers and acquisitions (netflix/paramount/warners, oh my) and whether the indie spirit is actually back (Ben says it is). As men of the people, we focus on the men (& women) on the street. And they have a lot to say. Entertainment lawyer Ben Moskowitz breaks down what not to do when you're pitching, first-time producer Will Butler shares the innovations of JOYBUBBLES—the first film at Sundance to screen with open audio description for blind audiences, and Tribeca programmer Jarod Neece offers insight into the numbers game that you've gotta overcome when applying to a premier fest. We meet David Fortune, who turned a million-dollar grant into his debut feature COLOR BOOK, Jamaican producer/lawyer Rob Maylor who's about to make Delroy Lindo a first-time director, and filmmaker Dana Reilly fresh off her OUR BODY ELECTRIC premiere. Austin-based producers Russell Groves and Jessica Wolfson make brief cameos and former-Austinite Heather Courtney joins us to talk about the film she's producing with Christina Ibarra, and the one she's directing (thx to a Chicken & Egg research grant).  Plus: surprise run-ins with editor Josh Ethier, publicist David Magdael and doc-superstar Ondi Timoner; Aaaand an owl that's been in 150 movies; a meteorologist and horses; and insight into a Park City real estate deal that proves that karma is real, but the best deals are behind us. Thanks to the A...

EP041 - If You Love It Enough w/ Rachael J. Morrison

49 min

It's time for some JOYBUBBLES! That's what first-time doc director Rachael J. Morrison believes—and she's brought her feature doc to Sundance to share the power of JOYBUBBLES with the world. Rachael's film introduces the world to Joe Engressia, a blind kid who discovered he could whistle a magic tone and hack the analog telephone system—becoming a pioneer in the world of "phone phreaking." Joe's story twists and turns as freaking leads to joy… and he inspires generations of outsiders to find their own unique paths through this life.  Rachael comes from years of experience as an archival producer, so it's no surprise that her first directing effort relies heavily on the use of "emotional archival," playing at the intersection of audio and visual communication techniques. We'll learn how she stumbled onto Joe's story and how four cassette tapes of him narrating his own life completely transformed the film. Those tapes are right up Ben's alley, and he shares his experience making a cassette-inspired short doc about telephone pranksters, and Keith confesses to benefitting from a college friend who knew how to hack payphones for free long distance back in the 1990s. Anyone who spent time on twentieth-century party lines, or making 3-way calls with friends will be transported into those landline days when the telephone was a great connector. Rachael spent ten years meeting phone phreaks and making this film, and she shares her affinity for jamband bootleg trading, mixtape culture, and the beauty of sitting by the radio with your finger on the record button. Plus: kids sledding in Park City, shout-out to an Errol Morris deep cut, finding inspiration via the obituary page, and appreciation for Joybubbles' words of ultimate wisdom: if you love something enough, it loves you back. Discussion Links: JOYBUBBLES (2026) | GATES OF HEAVEN (1978) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | READING RAINBOW (2024)     Timestamps: 00:00 Arrival in Park City — crisp is the word of the day 00:49 Me...

EP040 - Stories Left Behind w/ Julie Goldman & Chris Clements

1 hr 2 min

When we find Julie Goldman and Chris Clements of Motto Pictures in a Sundance hotel lobby, they're doing what they do—sharing hugs and encouragement with the Oscar-nominated team from THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR. They're the kind of producers who root hard for everybody in the field while juggling 8-10 projects of their own.  Julie and Chris know everyone—and they champion longtime friends and newcomers to docmaking alike. When we asked Julie to walk with us last year at SXSW, she was a quick and easy "YES," but it took til Sundance for us all to be in the same place at the same time. And here we are. Keith knows the Motto Pictures folks from the 2016-2017 awards campaign when they were shepherding both LIFE, ANIMATED and WEINER. Ben's lucky enough to be in business with Motto on his upcoming DR. DANTE project. So we've all spent time together, and this time we're bringing you along for a winding view into Chris & Julie's work philosophies and partnership—they're married business partners who each offer different aspects to the films they produce. We're away from the hubbub of Main Street and onto the nature trail spotting birds, murals, tunnels, and trees, all while digging into the Motto approach: how they financed their first feature on maxed-out credit cards at Brooklyn College, why they Zoom into shoots they can't attend, and how they handle story development and adaptation, including seeing a doc become a scripted comedy in partnership with Mike Schur and Ted Danson. Hear how Julie went from memorizing international phone prefixes at First Run Features to spotting potential in filmmakers before they see it themselves; and Chris drops a theory on why AI will never replace human storytelling—"it doesn't understand doubt." Join us as we stumble into a public art garden where we can't resist trying our hand at live-scoring the walk with some sculptural instruments. And we land on a question that these walks keep coming back to: where does documentary go from here?  Pl...

EP039: The Manhole Covers Of Park City W/ Sam Green

53 min

We are excited to catch Sam Green—despite freezing our asses off on Main Street—hours after the world premiere of THE OLDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. What starts as a conversation about chasing Guinness World Records quickly becomes something bigger: how curiosity transforms into meaning.  Sam walks us through ten years of filming, cancer scares, fatherhood, and the realization that 116-year-olds don't give a f**k about pearls of wisdom—like Keith, they just want snacks and naps. Sam is an inspiration, driven by endless curiosity and the urge to overcome his own inner shy-kid, he shares the impetus to innovate docmaking with 'live cinema' and we witness his obsession with manhole covers (yes, really). Sam pulls back the curtains on his years-long cutting process with OLDEST PERSON editor Aaron Wickenden—they cut for 1-month a year for ten years! This walk is full of positivity, creativity, and a lot of laughs. Plus: a stop & chat with Oscar-winning producer, Dan Cogan, why SALESMAN changed everything, and insight into Sam's new alter ego as a Venice futbol fanatic: Samuel Verde.  It's the end of an era at Sundance, but Sam reminds us why we fell in love with this art form in the first place. Discussion links: THE OLDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD (2026) | THE RAINBOW MAN/JOHN 3:16 (1997) | THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND (2002) | 32 SOUNDS (2022) | SALESMAN (1969) | SANS SOLEIL (1983) Timestamps: 00:00 Main Street at Sundance—14 Degrees 01:05 Meeting Sam During Covid Austin 02:42 The Oldest Person in the World—The Film That Changed 04:13 When Centenarians Just Want Snacks 07:41 The Manhole Cover Obsession 11:17 From Rainbow Man to Sundance 1997 15:28 The Weather Underground & Paul Thomas Anderson 19:56 Editing Over Ten Years with Aaron 25:32 The Live Documentary Revolution 29:13 Performing Arts Saved My Career 34:24 Advice: Keep It Small, Keep It Fun 41:39 Barbara Kopple on Watching Your Own Films 45:01 Gateway Drug: Salesman & Sans Soleil 48:25 Samuel the Venice S...

EP038 - Shelly Duval's Putter w/ Joe Pickett

1 hr 11 min

Ben squeezes into the VHS vault that is the Found Footage Festival (FFF) headquarters in NY with Joe Pickett—half of the FFF comedy duo who quit his job to follow a dirty country singer for four years, turned stolen instructional videos into a 20-year comedy empire, and once declared a half-naked woman painting ceramic clowns "the greatest moment in VHS history." Joe walks us through his filmmaking suicide pact with Nick Prueher, explains why Larry Pierce's "I Like to (BEEP)" changed everything, and reveals the dark truth about JINGLE BABIES. From sleeping on floors for a full year to getting sued in federal court for morning show pranks, Joe's path from documentary filmmaker to comedy archeologist proves you need to be willing to sleep on couches in order to finish what you start. We're surrounded by 14,638 tapes (no doubles), a giant Bart Simpson mask, and a signed GROWING PAINS poster that survived the New York subway. Plus: his new doc is so illegal you have to sign an NDA just to watch it.   Discussion links: VHS PARTY LIVE! (2026) | DIRTY COUNTRY (2007) | CHOP & STEELE (2022) | AMERICAN MOVIE (1999 ) | SHERMAN'S MARCH (1985) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome to Found Footage Festival HQ 02:42 The origin story: Larry Pierce and dirty country music 07:41 Quitting jobs and the suicide pact 11:17 Following weirdos for four and a half years 15:28 How Found Footage Festival started as fundraising 19:56 South by Southwest premiere and audience award 24:19 Greatest hits from the VHS vault 29:13 What makes bad things good 34:24 Lightning round: American Movie as gateway drug 40:00 Advice for aspiring filmmakers: sleep on couches 45:00 Video Filmed for Life—the illegal documentary  

EP037 - Theoretically Promiscuous w/ Courtney Cook

57 min

What does impact look like? That's what we're asking this week's guest, Courtney Cook—a veteran impact producer who's helped hundreds of doc-makers answer that question in her 7-years at POV. A high school teacher-turned-PhD-turned-doc-producer and soon-to-be professor of documentary film at Texas State, Courtney has strong opinions about perspective, ethics, and how having a "bad attitude" is the only way to make it in this field.  Courtney happily draws inspiration from Black Feminist Thought, HANDS ON A HARDBODY, and the stop-motion masters, the Brothers Quay—explaining just what it means to be "theoretically promiscuous."  Transitioning out of her role at POV and preparing to re-enter academia, we catch Courtney shortly before the Augmented Reality project LAYERS OF PLACE: AUSTIN that she produced with the MIT Open Documentary Lab makes its debut at SXSW this Spring. Courtney breaks down the difference between making art and making a career, why you should know how you want to "haunt" your audience, and what it actually takes to build a life as a documentary storyteller when you're not "kind-of rich." This wide-ranging walk cuts through the noise and confusion of the current doc landscape and lands at a simple conclusion, that the real silver lining in this industry is us. "We're the silver lining."  Plus: the gospel of asking better questions, how EYES ON THE PRIZE changed her entire life, why librarians rule, and a peek inside a little free art gallery in the Mueller neighborhood of East Austin. This one's about community, hustle, and learning to "hold on gently." Discussion Links: EYES ON THE PRIZE (1987-1990) | HANDS ON A HARD BODY (1997) | LAYERS OF PLACE: AUSTIN (2026) Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and Guest Introduction 02:00 Outlook on Texas Filmmaking and Doc Distribution 05:00 Mueller Lake Park and POV Impact Work 07:00 Education, Ethics, and Power in Documentary 10:00 From PhD to POV: Courtney's Path 15:00 Building Careers vs. Building Projects...

EP036 - Think Like A Filmmaker w/ Alan Berliner

1 hr 32 min

This week, Ben is on a solo mission to a freezing New York City, where legendary filmmaker Alan Berliner guides him through his studio that's equal parts fine art gallery and documentary laboratory. We're talking about a 108 drawer sound sculpture that Alan plays like an instrument, flood-destroyed film reels turned gorgeous works of art, and the kind of collections that make you wonder where archiving ends and genius begins. Alan waxes poetic on the fine art vs. filmmaker debate, breaks down why every film portrait is really about the person behind the camera, and encourages thinking like a filmmaker even when you're not on set. We get into his philosophy on acting at the speed of thought, editing without treatments, trusting your gut and letting the material tell you what it wants. Then there's his new film, BENITA, a deeply personal work born from decades of friendship and unimaginable loss — Alan's tribute to a woman whose story yearned to be told, even after she was gone. He opens up about what it means to honor someone through film, and why he believes the documentary world is about to shrink fast. This one's about honoring both your mentors —  in the case of Ben learning from Alan — and your mentee's — in the case of Alan coming to know Benita. Buckle up for a beautiful, wild walk through Alan Berliner's studio and his filmmaking career.     DISCUSSION LINKS: INTIMATE STRANGER (1991) | NOBODY'S BUSINESS (1996) | THE SWEETEST SOUND (2001) | WIDE AWAKE (2006) | FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED (2012) | BENITA (2024) | THE FAMILY ALBUM (1986)     TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Welcome to Doc Walks: Ben Solo in NYC 00:49 Meeting Alan Berliner at His Studio 02:42 Audio File: The 108 Drawer Sound Sculpture 07:00 The Object Cabinets: Bells, Keys, and Lock Drawers 11:17 Composing with Drawers: Live Demonstration 14:00 "Slow Dissolve" and Think Like a Filmmaker 19:56 Fine Art vs. Documentary: Does the Distinction Matter? 23:00 Parts and Labor: The 534-Frame Machine Sculpture 30:0...

EP035 - Dyin' Is Easy, Comedy Is Hard w/Louis Alvarez & Andy Kolker

47 min

Come along as Ben flies solo—no Keith, just the UT campus and two documentary titans who've been making films together longer than most marriages last: the indomitable Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker have a working partnership runnin' north of fifty years. They made AMERICAN TONGUES (1988) back when folks across the US said they just spoke like everyone else. They made PEOPLE LIKE US (1999) while Americans were spurring their nose at class conversations. And they're still at it—currently chasing down an obscure architect and sharing a film about a storied Texas State Senator. We get into the unglamorous truth of comedic docs (funders hate them), the secret to not killing your creative partner (separate wives, separate boroughs), and why the best stories are in places nobody's looking. They started as VISTA volunteers in New Orleans with no one to tell them where to point the camera. Now they're late-career and busy doing whatever the hell they want. Plus: we decipher a bunch of boats strung together, we bask in neo-classical architecture, all while Louis just wants a dirty chai.     DISCUSSION LINKS: AMERICAN TONGUES (1988) | YEAH YOU RITE! (1985) | PEOPLE LIKE US (1999) | CONFLUENCE (2024) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2010)     TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Keith sits this one out 00:49 Meeting Louis and Andy on the UT campus 02:42 The Rodney Ellis short and pulling political levers 04:13 Fifty years of partnership—step one: separate wives 07:41 Cass Gilbert: The everywhere architect you've never heard of 11:17 VISTA volunteers in 1970s New Orleans 15:28 Filming the intangible—accents, class, motherhood 17:48 Why funders hate funny 19:56 The three Cs killing documentary: celebrity, crime, cults 22:08 Steel canoes and the sculpture guessing game 25:32 Making CONFLUENCE during COVID 29:13 AI horror movies and the death of 90-minute docs 34:24 Advice: Go where nobody else is 37:00 Co-directing—the case for and against 43:00 Turtle pond, dirty chai, wrap it up  

BONUS RE-RELEASE, EPISODE 002: Look Out for the Ice – Live from Sundance

41 min

Consider this your midnight toast to new beginnings—we're popping the cork on our Sundance episode just in time for the calendar reset. As 2024 turns to 2025, we're grateful for the documentary community that keeps showing up, keeps creating, and keeps walking these festival streets in search of collaborators, inspiration, and maybe a free hot cocoa. So grab a glass of whatever you're having, bundle up (it's 31 degrees in spirit), and ring in the New Year with Ben and Keith's man-on-the-street adventure through Park City… We're walkin' and talkin' through the heart of Sundance, crashing the festival without a film and somehow finding exactly what we came for. From chance encounters with Iranian filmmakers debuting their first feature to freestyle raps from parking lot attendants, this episode captures the serendipity of showing up. We debate whether you need to be a "hopeless optimist" or a "pragmatic realist" to survive indie filmmaking (spoiler: legendary producer Sue Kim has strong opinions). Along the way we spot tuxedo pigeons, dodge UPS trucks, and nearly intercept Conan O'Brien. Plus: the house analogy for selling your film that actually makes sense. Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome to Doc Walks: Sundance Day 00:49 First Impressions: 31 Degrees and Feeling Like Imposters 02:42 Why Sundance Matters (Even Without a Film) 04:13 The House Analogy: Films, Sales Agents, and Finding Your Plot of Land 07:41 Man on the Street: Volunteers, Skiers, and the Latino Flu Panel 11:17 Meeting Frank Mosley: In-Person Connection in a Virtual World 15:28 Iranian Filmmakers Debut: Cutting Through Rocks 17:48 The Adobe House and Free Hot Cocoa 19:56 Chosen Glory: Parking Lot Freestyle and Good Vibes 22:08 Speed and First: Hope for the Future Generation 25:32 Producer Sue Kim: The Case Against Hopeless Optimism 29:13 Hopeful vs. Hopeless: Finding Your Festival Philosophy 34:24 Wrapping Up Day One and Looking Ahead Discussion Links: CUTTING THROUGH ROCKS (2025) | OVEX (202...

BONUS RE-RELEASE EPISODE 006 - Matt Wolf As Himself

41 min

Consider this a favorite re-wrapped Christmas gift just for you—Matt Wolf's PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF documentary is streaming now on HBO, reminding us all that the best presents are the ones that make us feel like kids again. This holiday season we're celebrating filmmakers who find magic in obsession and who build their own creative communities one passion project at a time. So pour yourself some eggnog, settle in by the fireplace, and unwrap our conversation with Matt—a filmmaker who turned his love of underground artists into a career that spans from cello-playing disco composers to the most beloved man-child in American comedy… It's a walk and talk through Matt Wolf's Lower East Side neighborhood as Ben unspools the making of WILD COMBINATION and Matt's path as a gay teen activist to documentary filmmaker. Matt opens up about why he never puts his own money into projects (and how he's managed to pull that off), the importance of finishing what you start, and finding archives you didn't know existed. We dig into his new soap opera doc filming behind the scenes at THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, and Matt shares his philosophy on building a body of work that surprises even himself. Plus: the secret to finding your creative community in a Melrose Place-style Manhattan courtyard.   Timestamps: 00:00 Walking to Meet Matt Wolf in New York 01:26 Matt's Melrose Place: Building Community in Manhattan 02:33 First Connections: Wild Combination and Arthur Russell 05:11 From Gay Teen Activist to Documentary Filmmaker 08:21 The Documentary That Was Made About Matt (And Why He Hated It) 09:45 Paper Tiger Television and the Experimental Film World 11:46 How Wild Combination Became a Feature (Accidentally) 13:11 Finding Your Niche and Telling Stories That Connect 16:29 The Search for Stories: Archives and Access 20:56 Never Put Your Own Money In: Matt's Golden Rule 23:41 Taking a Break (And Why It Never Really Works) 25:32 The New Project: Behind the Scenes of Soap Operas 2...

EP034 - High, Low, Buffalo, Mitzvah w/ Sally O'Grady

1 hr 6 min

As we close-out of our first year of doc'in & walkin' it's time to take stock in what this podcast is all about. We're excited to welcome self-proclaimed number one fan and Australian-born doc-maker, Sally O'Grady for a year-end, Year in Review episode. This nature-walk snakes through the wilderness behind Sally's North Austin home as Ben intros us to a game of "High, Low, Buffalo, Mitzvah" (a Steinbauer family dinner game) and a chance to reflect on the ups, downs, weird little moments and the true mitzvahs of our first 33 episodes. We'll catch up with some favorite Doc Walks bits, dig into what's working, get schooled on our Bechdel Test failures (eight women out of 33 guests—Sally came with receipts), and navigate the eternal tension between preparation and off-the-cuff authenticity. And Sally shares her 10-year journey making THE TROUBLE I SEE, a film about incarcerated fathers and their daughters, premiering at AFS Cinema on January 14th (tix on sale now!) Along the way: a surprise encounter with an 86-year-old Vietnamese general-turned-crossing guard, a sit-down at Sally's Pond™, and a chance to commune with a magnificent blue heron who refuses to fly. Through the highs, the lows, the birds and the buffaloes, every step we've taken together in 2025 has been a mitzvah… happy holidays to you, and thanks for walking this road with us! Discussion Links THE TROUBLE I SEE (2025) | WINNEBAGO MAN (2010) | TOWER (2016) | HIGH HOPES (2024) | PEEWEE PLAYS HIMSELF (2025)     Timestamps 00:00 Introduction and Sally O'Grady arrives 01:05 Sally as "number one fan" and Doc Walks origin story 02:00 Discovering Copperfield Nature Trail in northeast Austin 03:00 Sally's journey from Sydney to New York to Austin 05:00 Year one reflections and holiday episode setup 06:30 Do Ben-and-Keith-only episodes work? Sally weighs in 08:30 "Gardener Not a Carpenter" and useful documentary wisdom 10:00 Ben's vulnerability about prep vs. free-jazz conversations 11:00 Keith on want...

EP033 - The Stone Peacock w/ David Modigliani

1 hr 2 min

What is it with all the doc-filmmakers turning to podcasting?!? No, not us… we're talkin' about David Modigliani—a playwright turned poet turned documentary filmmaker turned podcaster (and Stanley Tucci voice director). This is a fun walk with an old friend at a park rumored to be populated by peacocks! The director of 2008's CRAWFORD (about a small town invaded by George W. Bush) and 2019's RUNNING WITH BETO (a quixotic look at Beto O'Rouke's life on the campaign trail), David is back in Austin for 36-hours to emcee the Home Slice Pizza Carnival and crash his old improv troupe, so naturally we dragged him through rocky trails and past $10 million homes to talk about his winding path from the Michener Center Grad program to doc-making, to his latest creation: PACK ONE BAG, an investigative podcast about his grandparents' escape from fascist Italy that premiered at Tribeca in 2024. David speaks from personal experience (and with his hands) about why improv is basically documentary directing, how hybridized narrative podcasting allowed him to write dialogue for Stanley Tucci as his great-grandfather—and what it means to metabolize democracy's fragility in this troubled time. Plus: bubbling ponds of coy fish, finding a peacock carved in stone, and David voices his Italian grandparents' (as he does in his podcast) with glee. This episode is sponsored by our friends at The Long Time—a 5-acre event-space and playground for your imagination. It's also the home field of The Texas Playboys (the sandlot baseball team that both Ben and David play for) and an ideal location for film productions! For more information go to thelongtime.com and follow along on IG @thelongtimetexas.     DISCUSSION LINKS: CRAWFORD (2008) | DONT LOOK BACK (1967) | RUNNING WITH BETO (2019) | PACK ONE BAG (2024) | BOYHOOD (2014) | MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (2024) | BLUE MOON (2025) | HIT MAN (2023)     TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Introduction and Setup at Mayfield Park 02:00 Shoutouts: Chris Floyd, Pizza...

EP032 - Podcasts Are The New Mayonnaise w/ Scott Ballew

1 hr 17 min

Keith's out this week, so Ben is strutting Travis Heights solo with his good pal Scott(y) Ballew. Scott's a lesson in cutting-against the grain and getting more for it. You might know him from his work as the former Head of Content at Yeti, making 100+ branded docs with one rule: no product placement. Scott's path is pure chaos theory - starting with a UT football national championship ring, spending time as an insurance salesman, working the ol' LA PA grind to end up changing how brands tell stories (all while writing and recording his own songs), Scott's tried it all. We dig into the decade-long golden era at Yeti where he worked with 20 filmmakers at once (including Ben on the TOOTSIE film), and how he learned directing on the job from his inspirations. Scott breaks down Terry Allen's "follow the muse" philosophy (including how it sent him on his own musical journey), the surreal Telluride premiere of ALL THAT IS SACRED (his Jimmy Buffett/Tom McGuane film that premiered the day Buffett died), and why he'd rather make films with friends than chase a Townes Van Zandt-type of obsession (learning in part by documenting Townes' son, J.T.).  Plus: exploring classic Texas cinema with Jeff Nichols, why loving your subjects beats gotcha filmmaking, and the eternal truth that podcasts are the new mayonnaise.  This episode is sponsored by our friends at The Long Time—a 5-acre event-space and playground for your imagination. It's also the home field of The Texas Playboys (the sandlot baseball team that both Ben and Scott play for).  For more information go to thelongtime.com and follow along on IG @thelongtimetexas    Discussion Links: WINNEBAGO MAN (2009) | GREENBERG (2010) | DIG! (2004) | BE HERE TO LOVE ME (2004) | THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (2005) | NO DIRECTION HOME (2005) | MUD (2012) | ALL THAT IS SACRED (2023) | THE LONG TIME (2018) | TOOTSIE (2016) | ANCHOR POINT (2016) | EVERYTHING FOR ALL REASONS (2019) Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction and Travis Heights...

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