P.O.V. News

A new documentary, "The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court," by Scranton native Pamela Yates will debut 10 p.m. July 14 on WVIA-TV Channel 44.

A French family deals with the beating death of their gay son by a group of skinheads in "Beyond Hatred," a new film on "P.O.V." . The documentary by Oliver Meyrou lingers on both the faces of the pained family and the forlorn corner of a park where the attack occurred as the trial approaches.

The blockbuster talent show is back for a fourth season with a new host -- comic Nick Cannon -- and returning judges David Hasselhoff, Sharon Osbourne and Piers Morgan as contestants compete for a $1 million grand prize, plus invaluable national exposure.

Michael Machosky can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7901. PBS' 22nd season of its acclaimed documentary series "P.O.V." starts tonight with a Pittsburgh-set story called "New Muslim Cool." It's about a Puerto Rican-American rapper and activist named Hamza Perez, who escaped a life of drug dealing 12 years ago, and became a Muslim.

Early in New Muslim Cool , the film kicking off the new season of POV on PBS, a radio interviewer says to Hamza Prez: "You're Muslim, American, a Puerto Rican from the hood, an artist, and a rapper.

If you're a filmmaker who has a great idea to pitch, a rough cut to showcase, or a finished film, now is the time to submit your work to P.O.V. for 2010 and beyond.

P.O.V. will stream "American Aloha" through March 7. Documentary fans will have the opportunity to see award-winning P.O.V. films again--or discover them for the first time -- in a new monthly online series.

In fact, after 24 years of writing about television, I am starting to believe that for all the fire-breathing, bent-on-reform critics of my generation, the medium is in many ways worse than it was decades ago.

The Sundance Film Festival came to a close earlier this week. For those of us who weren't able to make it to the festival in person, the web helped bring the festival experience to life online.

I don't know why you bother to give your limited print space to promote programs supposedly scheduled on CPTV.

Monika Hertwig knew very little about her father until she went to see Steven Spielberg's film "Schindler's List." According to Hertwig, no one in Germany talked about the Second World War.