Billie Eilish Documentary, Athena Film Festival, 'In Search of The Color Purple,' Full Bio: Frederick Douglass, 'Untitled Pizza Movie'
Last year, Billie Eilish became the youngest artist to sweep the major Grammy categories with her album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The candid new documentary, "Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry," follows the trajectory of her stardom, which began with a song she uploaded to Soundcloud when she was 14 years old. Director RJ Cutler joins us to discuss making the film.
The Athena Film Festival, which showcases women’s leadership, kicks off March 1st and runs through the end of the month. This year it will be held virtually and focus on specific themes like “Women in STEM” and “Dismantling White Supremacy.” Festival director Melissa Silverstein joins us to preview.
Salamishah Tillet, a contributing critic-at-large for The New York Times and the Henry Rutgers professor of African American studies and creative writing at Rutgers University, Newark, joins us to discuss her new book, In Search of The Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece. The book explores Alice Walker’s seminal novel and its cultural impact through archival research and interviews with Walker herself, as well as other public figures, including Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones.
For the fourth installment of February’s “Full Bio” series, David W. Blight discusses Frederick Douglass’s political work fighting for abolition and suffrage. We look at his allegiance to the Republican Party, including his working relationship with Abraham Lincoln, and why Andrew Johnson was so dismissive of Douglass. Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography is titled, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.
“Untitled Pizza Movie” by director David Shapiro began in the 90s as a mission between two friends to find the best slice of pizza in New York. But after a pizza maker the pair interviewed was arrested on federal charges, the project was abandoned. Years later, Shapiro returned to the footage. He joins us to talk about the resulting docuseries.
