Faux Reel Podcast

US Air Force JAG Attorney Yvonne Bradley volunteered to defend a man named Binyam Mohamed who was facing a death penalty case at Guantanamo Bay in 2005. Believing the detainees at Guantanamo were ‘the worst of the worst’ in the war on terror, Yvonne’s world was turned upside down as she arrived in Cuba and began to untangle an unimaginable case. Spending the next 4 years battling to uncover the truth, Yvonne’s is a captivating story of taking responsibility in the face of corruption at the...

“Home is the center of everything. It is the issue where everyone can come to the table.” - Sara Terry In this episode we explore the compass that developers, bankers and real estate executives use when making decisions on land use and rights when it comes to others' housing security. Mobile home parks are the lowest rung on the pole of the American Dream, but for many that's all that is feasible. But now that many mobile home parks' land is getting sold to large development companies,...

A visually stunning narrative documentary, NAKED GARDENS immerses audiences in the complex, unseen world of a family nudist resort in the Florida Everglades. Filmed over one season at this lush tropical campsite, the film follows the stories of individuals drawn to an unusual community, which promises both non-conformist values and, more importantly for some, a cheap place to live. As aging owner Morley and his residents prepare for the largest gathering of nudists in the US, the Mid-Winter...

Wildcat follows the emotional and inspiring story of a young veteran on his journey into the Amazon. Once there, he meets a young woman running a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, and his life finds new meaning as he is entrusted with the life of an orphaned baby ocelot. What was meant to be an attempt to escape from life, turns out to be an unexpected journey of love, discovery, and healing. In this episode, Dawn talks with co-Directors Melissa Lesh and Trevor Beck Frost about...

RANGER is a story about rite of passage. Set within Kenya’s Maasai homeland, an intimate and contemporary story of self-discovery unfolds, as 12 women become East Africa’s first all-female anti-poaching unit. Upending the male-dominated, reliance upon military-style training to make a wildlife ranger, Virginia, Liz, Momina and Damaris instead undergo a year-long program of deep trauma-release and healing, triggering profound transformation within themselves and sending shockwaves through...

Emelie Mahdavian's sweeping documentary BITTERBRUSH follows Hollyn Patterson and Colie Moline, range riders who are spending their last summer herding cattle in remote Idaho. Totally off the grid with only their dogs as companions, Hollyn and Colie brave inclement weather and perilous work conditions while pondering their futures. A portrait of friendship, life transitions, and the work of two skilled young women in the isolated and beautiful landscape of the American West, BITTERBRUSH is an...

At the heart of THE HOLLY is Terrance Roberts, an ex-member of the Bloods, who had since raised funds to open a youth center in his neighborhood, The Holly. Gang-member-turned-activist Terrance ends up shooting a man at a community event he organized focusing on non-violence. What unfolds is not black and white. The film reveals multi-level corruption in Denver's government, police force, and local media to weave narratives about gang violence in the city. THE HOLLY is the directorial debut...

When a young woman turns to the camera for refuge, she ends up with a firsthand account of what will become the deadliest man-made epidemic in United States history. Filmed over thirty years, ANONYMOUS SISTER is director, Jamie Boyle's chronicle of her family's fall into opioid addiction, providing a poignant and timely study of what it means to experience life in all its beauty and pain. On this episode Dawn and Jamie talk about the balance of healing and pain that comes from making a film...

After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown, preparing to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor, and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies, and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan...

SPIRIT OF THE PEAKS is a film about the struggle for balance between two worlds. For Hunkpapa Lakota skier Connor Ryan, skiing in Ute Territory has always raised questions about being in reciprocity with the land and its people. As a skier who connects with the land through sport, he empathizes with the injustices that have displaced the Utes and ongoing colonization, erasure and extraction impacting the Ute people. This story connects conflicted pasts to an awakening in cultural awareness...

Multi-hyphenate, multidisciplinary artist Saul Williams brings his unique dynamism to this Afrofuturist vision, a sci-fi punk musical that’s a visually wondrous amalgamation of themes, ideas, and songs that Williams has explored in his work, notably his 2016 album MartyrLoserKing. Co-directed with the Rwandan-born artist and cinematographer Anisia Uzeyman, the film takes place in the hilltops of Burundi, where a group of escaped coltan miners form an anti-colonialist computer hacker...

MAXIMA follows Peruvian indigenous farmer Máxima Acuña in her fight to protect her land as she stands up to the largest gold producer in the world: US-based Newmont Mining Corporation. Throughout Máxima’s fight for justice, the film provides an illustrative case study in the tactics used by transnational corporations to commit human rights violations and environmental crimes, the role played by non-profits and The World Bank, and, ultimately, the resilience of one woman who refuses to back...

GIRL PICTURE is a coming-of-age film from Finland that focuses on three young women over the course of three weekends. The girls are questioning their sexuality, and for one girl her lack of sexuality, navigating their relationships with their parents and each other, and reconciling with the idea that their childhood dreams may not be the direction they still want to go in. Dawn and Alli talk about the stylistic choices made for the film, how you can storyboard and plan so much but...

A coming-of-golden-age film about Florida's most dedicated dance team for women over 60 - The Calendar Girls. A film that is shaking up the outdated image of "the little old lady", and calling for everyone to dance their hearts out, while they still can. Dawn talks with documentary filmmaking couple Love Martinsen and Maria Loohufvud about how they were drawn to this dance group and built relationships with them, how The Calendar Girls inspired them in their own lives, and what lessons we...

Rita Baghdadi's documentary SIRENS premiered today, on her birthday, at the Sundance Film Festival! What a way to celebrate a birthday! The film follows the Middle East's first all-female metal band in Beirut as they wrestle with friendship, sexuality and destruction in their pursuit of becoming thrash metal rock stars. In this episode we talk about the value of multi-faceted female representation on screen, intergenerational trauma associated with political and familial histories, and some...

An intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma, JACINTA follows a young woman in and out of prison as she attempts to break free from an inherited cycle of addiction, incarceration, and crime. Now streaming on Hulu. Follow the film: Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NbcehOCClU Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jacintafilm/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jacintafilm/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jacintafilm

On this episode Dawn sits down with Colombian-American filmmaker Emily Cohen Ibañez for her documentary FRUITS OF LABOR. They discuss trickle down issues from systemic racism and immigration policies, children of immigrants having to step up to help support their families, food insecurity, and finding peace in connecting to our food and land. A Mexican-American teenager dreams of graduating high school, when increased ICE raids in her community threaten to separate her family and force her...

On this episode Dawn talks with documentary filmmaker Brooke Swaney for her newest film DAUGHTER OF A LOST BIRD. The film follows adoptee Kendra as she discovers her Native culture that she didn't grow up with, is welcomed in, meets her birth mother and other blood relatives, and learns more about how her story fits in with the bigger picture of ICWA, boarding schools and assimilation practices forced upon Indigenous people. Dawn and Brooke talk about making a film from an emotional place of...

On this episode Dawn chats with Director Adam Nawrot and Producer Sonia Szczesna for their debut feature doc GODSPEED, LOS POLACOS! They talk about their sense of adventure that matches the subjects of their film, some behind the scenes stories, and their Polish roots. The film tells the story of five kayakers on the edge of adulthood who skillfully pull the strings of the Soviet system, and find themselves on a kayaking expedition in the Americas with a six-wheeled military truck, homemade...

On this episode, Dawn has a powerful conversation with filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein and film protagonist Claude Motely about gun violence in their home city of Milwaukee, trauma and its ripple effects, healing, the justice system, and the importance of community, friendship and family. Claude Motley thought he’d beaten the odds: a business owner who moved his family from the violence of Milwaukee to the suburbs of Charlotte. Yet there he is on a trip home for a high school reunion: black...