New Season Of Doc World Will Feature A Globe-Trotting Selection Of Eight Films

EXCLUSIVE: A new season of World’s Doc World strand kicks off in May with eight films from around the globe. The feature docs will be on the World channel as well as the PBS app. The globe-trotting selection features international stories ranging from female Afghan pop stars to homelessness in Toronto.

“This season continues our mission of sharing bold, global stories that offer unique perspectives and ultimately can enrich our understanding of the world,” World Exec Producer Nina Chaudry told Deadline. “We look for international stories that are not always covered by the media and focus on underreported issues and stories that might otherwise go unnoticed.”

The Making of a Japanese is part of the lineup. It was part of a wider filmmaking project that yielded Oscar-nominated short Instruments of a Beating Heart and offers an intimate look inside a Tokyo public school.

Before that, and first up in the new season, is And Still I Sing, which follows Afghan pop star Aryana Sayeed and two young women she is mentoring on talent show Afghan Star. Their lives are turned upside down, as the doc shows, when the Taliban returns.

Moving the focus to North America, Someone Lives Here follows Toronto carpenter Khaleel Seivwright, who builds tiny shelters for unhoused people during the pandemic and faces pushback from city officials.

The Ants & the Grasshopper is about Anita Chitaya, a farmer from Malawi who travels to America to try and change attitudes to climate change. Searching for Amani (pictured, below) also touches on climate change as it follows a 13-year-old aspiring journalist investigating his father’s murder.

The Doc World selection also features Flying Hands, about a deaf school in rural Pakistan and which has been acquired by several international broadcasters, as covered by Deadline.

Narrow Path to Happiness is about a young gay couple from a remote Roma village fighting for acceptance from their family. Rounding out the season in late June is McCurry: The Pursuit of Color, billed as a rare, intimate look at photojournalist Steve McCurry.

The films are part of PBS SoCal’s Link Voices collection and the new season of Doc World is a partnership between World channel and PBS SoCal.

Ahead of the new season of international docs, World’s Chaudry said that “the role of international documentary filmmaking right now is absolutely vital.”

She added: “At its core, documentary journalism allows us to go beyond the headlines and sound bites to explore the deeper truths of what’s happening in the world. It informs people by revealing the complexities behind global issues and it does so by putting a human face to those stories.”