Women Laughing, a doc short directed by Kathleen Hughes & new filmmaker Liza Donnelly about the women cartoonists of the New Yorker, won the audience award at the 2026 Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival in Middlebury, VT. Next up is a run at NYC’s Firehouse Cinema from Sep 18-24.
Women Laughing, a doc short directed by Kathleen Hughes & Liza Donnelly about the women cartoonists of the New Yorker, won the audience award at the recent Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. Next are the Provincetown International Film Festival on June 11 and 13, and the DC/Dox festival June 13 in Washington. 
“Women Laughing” is a documentary short directed by Kathleen Hughes and Liza Donnelly about the remarkable women who create cartoonss for the New Yorker magazine. The film had its world premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival last month and followed up with a screening at the Montclair Film Festival. Next up is DOC NYC, where the film will screen Saturday November 15 at 4:45 pm, with a November 17 screening to follow at 2:15 pm. Both screenings will be followed by a Q & A with the directors.
On June 26, “Two American Families 1991-2024” won an Emmy for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary. Sadly the occasion fell on the same day as the passing of Bill Moyers, who was integral to the project throughout the more-than three decades of its production. Tom Casciato, Kathleen Hughes, and Andrew Fredericks accepted the award. Video below.
6-time winner of the International Bluegrass Association’s mandolinist of the year award, 2-time Grammy nominee, Sierra Hull has had an enviable career by any standard. But the story of how she reached those heights is truly extraordinary, even seeming a bit magical, as she tells Tom Casciato in this revealing PBS News Hour profile.
“Two American Families 1991–2024” has been nominated for a 2025 News & Documentary Emmy Award in the Outstanding Social Issue Documentary category. Winner announced June 26. You can watch the film here.
Singer/songwriter Neko Case joins Tom Casciato on PBS News Hour to discuss her new book, The Harder I Fight The More I Love You, including growing up in solitude, her musical influences, her music and what Tom calls her lifelong antidote to loneliness.
The International Documentary Association has named Tom Casciato and Kathleen Hughes’s “Two American Families 1991-2024” the top TV documentary of 2024. Shot over parts of 34 years and featuring Tom and Kathleen’s longtime colleague, correspondent Bill Moyers, the film follows the fortunes two Milwaukee Families, the Stanleys and the Neumanns, from the time the breadwinners in each are laid off from well-paying union jobs to the present. The New York Times called the film “a masterwork.” It streams on YouTube and at PBS Frontline’s site.
Author and music exec Joe Boyd, who produced acts from Pink Floyd to Nick Drake to Maria Muldaur to R.E.M., joins Tom Casciato on PBS News Hour to discuss his expansive new book, “And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain,” which tells the story of musical artists from Brazil to Pakistan, Jamaica to South Africa, Bulgaria to Nigeria and beyond, without whom the popular music of the West would be unrecognizable.
Nick Lowe, at 75, takes stock of his life and career in a wide-ranging interview covering his musical influences (from his mother to Tennessee Ernie Ford, Nat King King Cole and beyond) to his time producing Elvis Costello (and who was telling who what to do) to the 1980s (which weren’t as fun as they looked) all the up to his latest album with Los Strait Jackets, “Indoor Safari.”