Malcolm Gladwell

The two projects fit together almost perfectly.

So I called up the director of the documentary, Andrew Jarecki, and said, do you want to sit down for a conversation?

And he said yes.

And so we got together at On Air Fest in Brooklyn for a long talk about Alabama and filmmaking and all kinds of other things.

If the name Andrew Jarecki seems familiar to you, it's because he's one of the preeminent documentarians of our time.

He did Capturing the Freedmen, The Jinx, a brilliant, brilliant guy.

Here's our conversation.

Andrew, welcome to Brooklyn.

Thank you.

Thank you for doing this.

The reason you and I are on stage is that back in the fall, we released a seven-part series on revisionist history called The Alabama Murders.

And almost at exactly the same time, you released a documentary on HBO called The Alabama Solution.

Our series was about a capital crime.

punishment case.

Your series was about the Alabama prison system.

And it was this marvelous instance of two works that overlapped but didn't overlap.

And I texted you and said, we should have a conversation.

And here we are.

And I found your documentary extraordinary.

And I was just telling you backstage, I'm not someone who listens, watches a lot of documentaries, but I have seen all of yours.