Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman speak to Laura Poitras about her latest documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, recently nominated for an Academy Award. The film explores the efforts of celebrated photographer Nan Goldin and a group of activists to compel arts institutions to refuse donations from the Sackler pharmaceutical family and remove their names from the walls of the many exhibits and museums they fund in recognition of the damage their highly lucrative opioid OxyContin has wreaked in communities across America.
Blending an intimate and revealing look at Goldin's with footage of the group's actions against the Sacklers, this moving documentary offers a powerful account of art, activism, and the struggle to be heard above the clamor of wealth and the cultural and political power it concentrates.
Also, Ann Goldstein, translator of Alba de Cespedes' Forbidden Notebook, returns to recommend The Cazalet Chronicles, a five book series, by Elizabeth Jane Howard.