Okapi

Productions

Two American Families 1991-2024 (2024)

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“A knockout documentary …At a time when so much documentary television feels generic, disposable and even straightforwardly pointless, this is both a master work unto itself and a glaring reminder of what is largely absent in television narrative nonfiction.”

Margaret Lyons, The New York Times

 

“… intriguing and entertaining”

Boston Globe

 

“If the people weren’t so decent, it would be difficult to watch. But they are decent, even heroic.”

Wall Street Journal

 

“… a rebuke to the fantasy, dear to certain (wealthy) politicians, that
any family can (and some of them say) survive on a single paycheck. Bootstraps can lift you only so far”

Los Angeles Times

 

“One of the most moving and riveting and upsetting documentaries I’ve seen in quite some time”

Margery Eagan, WGBH Boston Public Radio

 

“Powerful … think of it as the American Seven Up”

Economic Hardship Reporting Project

 

The American Dream And Other Fairy Tales (2022)

American Dream

“an entertaining, easy-to-digest film to explain the inequality hiding in plain sight.”

Variety

“makes an extremely powerful, timely and important statement”

Hollywood Reporter

an essential look at the realities facing the American workforce”

Film Threat

Sundance Film Festival (World Premiere)

Hot Docs (International Premiere)

Telluride Mountain Film Festival

Traverse City Film Festival

The Armor of Light (2015)

Rob Schenck

“impressive … thoughtful and moving … compelling real-life drama”

Hollywood Reporter

“Fascinating”

Washington Post

“Electrifying”

Village Voice

“powerful, provocative”

Vanityfair.com

“The only time I’ve cried more during a movie than the first time I saw The Armor of Light was probably the second time I saw The Armor of Light … it is a beautiful, conflicted piece of work”

Vulture

One “of the year’s most powerful documentaries … Astonishing”

rogerebert.com

“Gripping”

Christian Science Monitor

“Intelligent and emotionally charged”

Variety

“Compelling … a vital colloquy on whether we shape our lives through fear or with love.”

Los Angeles Times

“Saw ‘The Armor of Light’ tonight. My heart is still pounding. Must must must see.”

Tweet from New York Times Sunday Styles reporter Katie Rosman

“The Armor Of Light is an enormously powerful documentary about God and guns”

Tweet from New York Magazine film critic Bilge Ebiri

An “effective conversation starter, a chronicle of morally grounded politics that deploys some sound reasoning.”

New York Times

“A moving portrait”

Mother Jones

“Bold”

New York Post

“Powerful”

Nell Minnow, Beliefnet

“… offers a look at the issue of gun control with fresh eyes … what makes the film more than a political pamphlet is the integrity and curiosity with which directors Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes approach the topic of faith.”

The Daily Beast

“Insightful”

Common Sense Media

“Powerful”

Starpulse.com

a “highlight of the [Boston GlobeDocs] festival”

WBUR, Boston

“… a courageous look at our fractured political culture, and an assertion that it is, indeed, possible for people to come together across deep party lines to find common ground.”

Shockya.com

People Magazine “People Picks” selection

Tribeca Film Film Festival selection – world premiere, April 2015

Montclair Film Festival selection

IFC Film Festival selection

Bentonville Film Festival selection

Galway Film Festival – Best International Film (tie)

Traverse City Film Festival – Founders Prize Special Award

GlobeDocs Film Festival selection

Hamptons International Film Festival selection

Heartland Film Festival selection

Tallgrass Film Festival – Outstanding Documentary Feature Award

Key West International Film Festival Selection

Shortlisted for 2017 Peabody Award

 

Two American Families (2013)

Two American Families

“‘Two American Families’ … will take its place among the central documents of our time.”

George Packer, The New Yorker

“Extraordinary”

David Rohde, The Atlantic

“Watch Two American Families right now … “It’s one of the best, and most heartbreaking, documentaries I’ve seen this year.”

Alex Pareene, Salon

“… a potent treatise on the U.S.’ struggling middle class … it demands to be seen and discussed.”

Brian Lowry, Variety

“Watch it, and if your blood isn’t boiling by the end, check your pulse.”

Greg Kaufmann, The Nation

“Heartbreaking …  If this documentary was a study in anything, it was in the grace and resilience with which these two families met the incoming tide and their cheerfulness in the face of impossible odds.”

Emma Brockes, The Guardian

“Powerful”

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

“The details of particular scenes are striking and moving”

PopMatters (8 out of 10 stars)

“Much like the series of Up documentaries by Michael Apted, visiting the same small group of people over every seven years of their life, Bill Moyers and Frontline have produced a series of intimate, involving studies … Moyers brings, as always, two things missing from many TV reports on economic issues: perspective and compassion.”

David Bianculli, TV Worth Watching

“America got it’s own Up Series”

Tweeted by Gawker senior writer Nitasha Tiku

“I can’t recommend “Two American Families” highly enough … The film touches on so many big issues — the credit crunch; what’s waiting for latch-key kids; jobs going overseas and not returning; the mortgage bust; how money, or its absence, can strangle the love out of a marriage — but effortlessly, without lecturing.

Previously.TV

“… stunningly thought provoking, and if I were you I’d not waste another second on this review but would cruise over to PBS.org and start streaming it. Right now.”

The Jesuit Post

United States of ALEC (2012)

“Most people have no idea what ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is or does, but everyone should…. Bill Moyers is helping get the word out”

Washington Post

Iron Man 3 just opened this past weekend, followed soon by more would-be blockbusters. I’m sure a lot of these movies will be entertaining, but none will be more important or relevant than … ‘The United States of ALEC’”

Huffington Post

 

 

Blueprint America: Beyond The Motor City  (2010)

“… well-constructed …”

Washington Post

“Watch this! … a cool documentary.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

 

 

 

 

Blueprint America: Road To The Future  (2009)

 “[This] show made the questions and precedents of transportation planning feel local and approachable and immediate, which is not a small civic accomplishment”

The Infrastructurist

 

 

Buying The War (2007)

“…one of the most gripping and important pieces of broadcast journalism so far this year …”

Tom Shales, Washington Post

 “… a methodical, devastating, pull-no-punches recap of mainstream journalism’s collective failure to challenge the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war …”

Variety

“ … [this] devastating 90-minute documentary should be required viewing. This is the kind of work television can do brilliantly when given time and resources … Journalism students everywhere should watch and take notes.”

Denver Post

- Emmy Award

- Sidney Hillman Prize

Protecting Minors: Now with Bill Moyers (2004)

 Gracie Award

Speaking Truth To Power (2003)

 “… an introduction to [a] remarkable pastor … [James] Forbes preaches that peace without social and economic justice is impossible.”

New York Daily News

The Last Hope: Now with Bill Moyers (2003)

- Emmy Nomination

America’s First River  (2002)

 ”… a richly textured vision of a river’s effect on a country’s history, art, literature and environmental politics  … This elegantly photographed work offers a bounty of glorious images.”

New York Times

Surviving The Good Times (2000)

 “This is documentary television at its best.”

Rocky Mountain News

“What Bill Moyers and his longtime colleagues Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes have done is not only rather remarkable, but even commendable.”

New York Newsday

Free Speech For Sale: A Moyers Report (1999)

- Society of Professional Journalists’ First Amendment Award

Hardball: The Doc & Darryl Story (1996)

 “First class producers Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes weave the many threads of the story into a coherent whole and then use television to push it to another level.”

New York Daily News

Living on the Edge (1995)

“Reminiscent of Hoop Dreams in its scope, this admirable project could be called Life Dreams as it examines the fallout from a national nightmare for blue-collar workers.”

USA Today

“Bruce Springsteen’s … The Ghost of Tom Joad, a brooding song cycle about society’s dispossessed, might well serve as the companion piece to this film … unsparing and unsettling.”

People

“The flow of good jobs out of America to cheap-labor countries has become a fact of American life, and “Living on the Edge” tells what that means for a few of the men and women left behind.”

New York Times

“… as the show progresses, its simplicity gathers power. Ignoring breadth, it delivers depth: a shockingly clear picture of the personal consequences that flow from the rearrangement of America’s economy.”

Philadelphia Inquirer

-  Christopher Award

- Honorable Mention, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award

Minimum Wages: The New Economy (1992)

 “… a powerful look at how the American dream is vanishing right before America’s eyes.”

Hollywood Reporter

 “… hits a national nerve …”

New York Daily News

 “… a bleak but powerful portrait …”

Wall Street Journal