This month’s Awards All-Stars 2026 Collection highlights four films from our eighth season of POV Shorts that have received industry accolades and precipitated the Oscar® season. Among the Awards All-Stars films in the collection are two films both recently selected to the Shortlist – Classroom 4 and Chasing Time (the 40 minute Director’s Cut). We premiered the full slate of our 8th season in November and presented the 24-minute version of Chasing Time.
Now part of the Oscar® legacy, Chasing Time and Classroom 4 take their place within the storied history of the Academy, and we’re crossing our fingers for our film teams that have made this year’s shortlist.
Awards All-Stars Collection is a celebration of Oscar® contenders, along with two other films that have garnered industry recognition whose stories and characters are worthy of special mention in their own right: Songs of Black Folkand The People Could Fly. As a new Juneteenth tradition comes to Emerald City of Seattle, the filmmakers behind Songs of Black Folk take viewers inside the process of commemorating the history of Black enslavement by honoring Black creative spirit. The People Could Fly is a portrait of Lexington, Kentucky’s rollerskating community woven together from a patchwork of intimate interviews mixed with archival and contemporary footage of rollerskaters, and their go-to places, to tell of its lasting presence and the deeper meaning as it acknowledges the complicated racial histories within the American South. Classroom 4 offers an intimate look at a prison where a class of free and incarcerated students come together to study “The History of Crime and Punishment.” As the professor moderates their conversations, the incarcerated individuals are shown as whole people, not defined by their crime, but with a set of experiences not unlike their free classmates. In the 24-minute streaming version of Chasing Time, renowned photographer James Balog, whose work merges fine art and science to reveal the impact of climate change, is confronted by the fragility of his physical health while documenting the fate of the world’s glaciers.
Together, this quartet of must-see titles reveal the shared humanity experienced during moments of transformation when a barrier becomes an opportunity to engage with communities, to go beyond limitations, explore new traditions and celebrate the old ones.
Featured Collection:
Celebrating the Culture: Kwanzaa 2025 Collection Streaming through Jan 1
What defines community? What brings people together? What does community look like? Our latest collection is curated around the nature of community in an era of cultural, social and political division. Springing from a desire to connect with others around shared experience, collective memory and culture, communities provide a pivotal transformative counter to peril, loss and grief. This collection presents POV features and POV Shorts that imagine various ways communities define themselves, their goals, needs and ideals, and how histories, personal experiences and geography influence how communities look and feel.
From undaunted grassroots organizers confronting violence in their communities inMurders That Matterand The Body Politic; to activists united around accessibility and inclusion in All Riders; to American Seams, Águilas and A Story of Bones where bonds are forged by traditional craft, loss and memorial; and MnM and Jardines, intimate portraits of people whose identity and self expression are deeply entwined with dignity and safety.
These stories demonstrate that community is a shared effort built through dreams, perseverance, resistance, and that Getting Back to Abnormal is only possible through collective healing and joy. Watch these visionary stories about community spaces and places and the people who create connections, transform themselves and others, and make a difference out of necessity and hope.
POV Shorts, the award-winning nonfiction shorts film series curated by POV, returns today for its 8th season with bold new films from visionary independent filmmakers. This year’s lineup explores themes of cultural identity, climate change, resilience, intergenerational storytelling, music, and belonging.
What does it take to rebuild a community after a crisis? POV’s Getting Back to Abnormalfollows the stories of people coming together to reclaim normalcy and resilience in extraordinary times.
Getting Back to Abnormal is be available to stream now until Jan 30 2026 on POV onpbs.org, and the PBS App.
Discover our free resources, thoughtfully created by educators, community leaders, and librarians to inspire learning and dialogue. From reading materials to discussion guides, these tools help you create meaningful impact in your community.
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Perspective Fund and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding comes from Nancy Blachman and David desJardins, Bertha Foundation, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Charitable Trust, Park Foundation, Sage Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Abby Pucker, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.
