147: Belly Of The Beast, Coded Bias, and the Yasmin Neal interview

[CW for references to domestic violence, racial violence, and medical malpractice.]

The podcast staycations on the doc-festival circuit this week with a couple of films from the Human Rights Watch Film Festival: Belly Of The Beast, a harrowing account of involuntary sterilization in the California penal system, and the sickening persistence of eugenics in the U.S.; and Coded Bias, which explores the capitalist algorithm and everything artificial "intelligence" gets wrong. (Note: I'd intended also to review Down A Dark Stairwell, but that screener didn't come through; hopefully I'll get to it later in the month.)

In the Cold Case section, I talked to filmmaker Yasmin Neal about her 2019 short Target Practice, a six-minute short that "has become a viral representation of 'modern-day lynching.'" We covered Holiday vs. Simone, how to direct children in dark material, and American iconography for all. The documentaries of tomorrow and a timeless short of yesteryear, in The Blotter Presents, Episode 147.

SHOW NOTES

• The Human Rights Watch Film Festival lineup
• Amazon buckles on facial-recognition deployment
• Target Practice on YouTube