Thom Powers

In the golden age of documentaries, who benefits? SUBJECT reveals the unintended consequences – good, bad, and complicated – of having your life shared on screen. Featuring the protagonists of acclaimed documentaries The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, The Wolfpack, Capturing the Friedmans, and The Square, as well as the filmmakers of Minding the Gap, Cameraperson, An Inconvenient Truth, and more.

Men, most of them naked, talk about their penises. They range from 17 to 70+, all from the U.S. The interviews are edited around themes: discovery, early sexual experiences, masturbation, size, oral sex, libido, performance, disease and maladies, maturity. A lexicographer discusses language, especially slang; a few archival educational-film clips divide the topics. Images and stories mix with facts and philosophical reflection. The usually private becomes public.

Two advocacy groups, The Million Moms and the Second Amendment Sisters, are diametrically opposed on gun control, but they agree on one point: mothers will and should have a voice in determining gun control policy in America. Guns & Mothers explores the grassroots beliefs of both movements by focusing on two different women, living in two different Americas.