They say you can’t go home again. But don’t tell that to Oscar winner John Ridley.
The writer-director and co-host of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast returned to his hometown for the 18th annual Milwaukee Film Festival. While there, he recorded interviews for the pod with makers of two documentaries in the lineup: All of the Above and Newport & The Great Folk Dream.
“Students from different faith backgrounds come together for an epic World Religions class in a public Illinois high school,” notes a description of All of the Above. “Through the work of a challenging yet compassionate teacher, the community as a whole is asked to confront preconceived notions of faith and belonging — religious literacy, as he terms it.”
As a teenager, director Allison Walsh took that class at Mount Prospect High School in a suburb of Chicago. Walsh and producer/co-writer Lily Qi join Ridley for a conversation recorded at Nō Studios in Milwaukee – site of Ridley’s production company, which co-produces Doc Talk with Deadline.
The director shares how she got permission to shoot at Mount Prospect High and how she drew inspiration from America to Me, a documentary series directed by Steve James that was filmed in nearby Oak Park River Forest High School.
Ridley also welcomes to the mic Joe Lauro, producer of Newport & The Great Folk Dream, a film directed by Robert Gordon (Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal) that examines the historic music festival in coastal Rhode Island.
“Before Coachella and Woodstock, there was Newport,” writes the Milwaukee Film Festival program. “From 1963 to 1966, the famed Newport Folk Festival brought together the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Pete Seeger and more. Rare and previously unseen archival footage captures this charged moment when freedom songs met work songs, tradition met innovation, and the spirit of protest filled the air.”
That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk hosted by Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley), and Matt Carey, Deadline’s senior documentary editor. As noted, the pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
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