POV Shorts Season 9 Moves to Time Studios' YouTube Channel
POV Shorts is moving off broadcast television and onto YouTube. Season 9 of the documentary short-film series will stream on Time Studios' YouTube page from 17 November, Variety reported. Viewers will find new films there instead of PBS, the series' previous home.
The switch will happen in stages. Season 9 opens with two films, Bloodlines, Mississippi directed by Crystal Kayiza and The Boys and the Bees directed by Arielle Knight. Those two will also air on PBS. After that, the rest of Season 9 will be exclusive to Time Studios, meaning only available there.
Bloodlines, Mississippi follows Dr Foluso Fakorede and his team at Cardiovascular Solutions of Central Mississippi as they work to prevent avoidable amputations. The film was produced by Harri Grace and Paul King in collaboration with Nobel Prize Outreach. The Boys and the Bees, produced by Knight and Sean Weiner, follows two brothers who tend beehives while restoring their family's homestead in Georgia. Both are short documentaries, meaning short films that tell true stories.
The season includes nine other titles. They are Hold Me Close by Aurora Brachman and LaTajh Simmons-Weaver, Tessitura by Brit Fryer and Lydia Cornett, In the Morning Sun by Serville Poblete, Artificial Love by Arjun Fischer and Buckskin by Mars Verrone. The line-up is completed by Still Standing by Victor Tadashi Suárez and Livia Albeck-Ripka, Who Loves the Sun by Arshia Shakiba and A Derailment by Nathan Truesdell. New films will roll out on the Time Studios channel through the season.
Six of the Season 9 films have qualified for Oscars consideration in the documentary short film category. They are Bloodlines, Mississippi, The Boys and the Bees, A Derailment, Buckskin, In the Morning Sun and Still Standing, Variety reported. Qualification means they are eligible to be considered for a nomination. It does not guarantee a nomination.
POV Shorts launched in 2018 and its films have won three IDA Documentary Awards for Best Short Form Series. POV Shorts and Time Studios have worked together before on the Season 6 film Sol in the Garden by Débora Souza Silva and Emily Cohen Ibañez. Time Studios has also joined as distribution partner, meaning the company handling release, for the Co-Production Fund from American Documentary/POV Shorts and Chicken & Egg Films.
For viewers, this means a change in habit. Instead of tuning to a broadcast slot, they can watch free on YouTube. The two opening films offer a final link between the old home and the new one.
