“I took a journalism class and the professor had us read a New Yorker article that had the journalist’s subjective experience in there. She was using it as an example of why this is bad or wrong. And I remember disagreeing with it.”

Hundreds of amateur skateboarding videos, six years of production and 252 shoot days later, director Bing Liu has held tight to his first instincts: making a Sundance-premiered, Oscar-nominated film, in which he was a main character.

Minding the Gap started off as a project to “get skateboarders engaged in things like child abuse and domestic violence.” But Liu ended up with so much more—a verité-style, chilling documentary on race, class and the cycle of abuse, seen through the eyes of a friend, a girlfriend, a child and a step-child. Plus, a surprising twist - the story of Liu’s own experience with domestic abuse.

Tune in for a Q&A with director, Bing Liu, and hear his view on the journalism/documentary divide, asking the tough questions and making work personal.

But before you listen, fair warning. This episode contains spoilers. Watch Minding the Gap first on Hulu here. Or listen to the podcast anyway—it will make you want to watch the film even more.

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