Pure Nonfiction: Inside Documentary Film
TV & Film
In the three-part series Nuclear Family, filmmaker Ry Russo-Young explores her own family history. She was born in 1981 and grew up with two lesbian moms Russo and Robin and an older sister in Manhattan at at time when gay parenting was still rare. Her sperm donor Tom Steel was a gay lawyer in San Francisco who wound up suing Ry’s moms for paternity rights. From a young age, Ry was active in trying to tell her family’s story and defend her mothers against discrimination in the courts and in the media. Ry appeared in Meema Spadola’s PBS documentary Our House (2000) about kids of gay and lesbian parents; and was profiled in the New York Times magazine in 2004. But there were always murky areas to the lawsuit that Ry couldn’t fully confront until now.
Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers helped to produce "Our House” and finally gets a chance to re-open questions with Ry that remained perplexing for over 20 years.
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188: Margreth Olin on "Songs of Earth"
187: Rob Reiner on Albert Brooks and Spinal Tap
186: Yousef Srouji on Palestinian Home Movies
185: Paul Cronin on Columbia 1968
184: Clair Titley on "The Contestant"
183: Just Vision’s Julia Bacha and Suhad Babaa on 20 Years of Covering Israel-Palestine
182: Sreemoyee Singh — from India to Iran
181: Mila Turajlić on Non-Aligned
180: Asmae El Moudir on "The Mother of All Lies"
179: Alex Gibney on Paul Simon
178: Anand Giridharadas on "The Persuaders"
177: Carla Gutierrez on "Frida"
176: Alissa Wilkinson at The New York Times
175: S. Leo Chiang on "Island in Between"
174: Oscar contenders, part 2
173: Oscar contenders, part 1
172: Nicole Newnham on “The Disappearance of Shere Hite”
171: "Every Body" Profiles Intersex Activists
170: Raoul Peck on "Silver Dollar Road"
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