With radio producer Mooj Zadie (Fresh Air) we pulled together an eclectic night of exploring the inclination in documentary to turn inwards and take on a self-reflexive approach. We’ll unpack the highs, lows, and all the messiness in between that comes with looking in a mirror and inviting others to join you.

We bring together three unique projects: Caveh Zahedi’s hilariously recursive The Show About The Show, Andrea Silenzi’s intimate, and poignant Why Oh Why, and David Shields’ latest collaboration with James Franco, and Caleb Powell – I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel. These projects each take on the quandary of self as subject in different ways. Let’s parse together and bring a clear-eyed focus to the mess. Plus, talk of weed, fishing, cocaine, celebrities, daisy chain, and heartbreak.  

The Show About The Show is a hilarious self-referential meta-series about a Brooklyn filmmaker, Caveh Zahedi, trying to make a TV show. Co-starring Alex Karpovsky, Eléonore Hendricks, Dustin Defa and a who’s-who of artists from Brooklyn’s independent filmmaking community, the show tells the story of everything that can—and does—go wrong as Caveh tries to get a television series funded, produced and distributed.

Why Oh Why is a weekly podcast about relationships from Panoply.

In each episode, Andrea Silenzi speaks with friends, experts, and guys in bars about where love and sex meets technology. The show tells the stories about relationships by blurring the lines between memoir, documentary, and fiction.

Academy Award nominee James Franco (127 Hours), New York Times bestselling author David Shields (Reality Hunger), and failed artist Caleb Powell collaborate to create an unusually raw, risky, brave, provocative film, I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel. The buddy movie to end all buddy movies. My Dinner with André, with more urgency.The Trip, without the four-star meals. Sideways, minus the profound antipathy toward Merlot.

On the first day of shooting, Shields and Powell throw out the script when a real-life, real-time argument erupts, with Powell threatening to storm off the set and shut down the movie over what can and can’t be used. Franco is unwillingly dragged into the scene to mediate the quarrel and, ultimately, help to save the film.

Very loosely adapted from the widely acclaimed book of the same name (“Outrageously entertaining”—Boston Globe), I Think You’re Totally Wrong is a thrilling and hilarious debate about what matters more, life or art. Or beer.

David Shields is the internationally bestselling author of twenty books, including Reality Hunger (named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), and Black Planet (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). Other People: Takes and Mistakes is forthcoming from Knopf in February 2017. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, Shields has published essays and stories in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Esquire, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, McSweeney’s, and Believer. His work has been translated into twenty languages.

Andrea Silenzi is an accomplished radio producer known for her innovative and personal brand of storytelling. Her show, Why Oh Why was named a best new podcast of 2016 by the New York Times, NPR, Huffington Post and iTunes. Previously, Andrea was the founding producer of Slate’s The Gist with Mike Pesca.

Mooj Zadie is an associate producer at Fresh Air with Terry Gross. His work has appeared on Pitchfork, Studio 360, 99% Invisible, and Love + Radio. His radio work won an award from the Third Coast International Audio Festival. In 2014, he created a tiny podcast called Tape, and a year later, a mega festival called Tape.

Caveh Zahedi is a writer/director whose feature films include The Sheik and I (2012), I Am A Sex Addict (2006), In The Bathtub of the World (2001), I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore, (1994), and A Little Stiff (1991). He is currently in production on an episodic series for BRIC TV called The Show About The Show.