PBS’s POV Acquires Rights for Midnight Traveler

PBS’s documentary showcase POV has acquired the U.S. broadcast rights for the award-winning documentary feature Midnight Traveler, directed by Hassan Fazili.

The film will air as the penultimate movie in the series on PBS stations on Monday, December 30. Midnight Traveler had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Produced by American Documentary and broadcasting on PBS since 1988, POV is American television’s longest-running documentary series. Midnight Traveler is a co-production of Old Chilly Pictures, American Documentary, POV and Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation For Public Broadcasting.

Midnight Traveler is a feature-length autobiographical documentary chronicling the perilous journey a family takes across central and west Asia to Europe. The film puts a human face on the refugee crisis, providing first-person access to one family’s choices, anxieties and hopes as they try to survive deportation, a life in hiding and the smuggling route to Europe. When the Taliban puts a bounty on Afghan director Fazili’s head, he is forced to flee with his wife and two young daughters. Capturing their uncertain journey, Fazili shows firsthand the dangers facing refugees seeking asylum and the love shared between a family on the run.

POV also revealed that The Rescue List will follow as the season finale in March 2020.

“Public media showcases such as POV give stories like Hassan’s an important platform,” said producers Emelie Mahdavian and Su Kim. “If there are Americans unsure of the dedication and intentions of migrant families, a PBS broadcast of Midnight Traveler compels them to connect with migrants and the daunting sacrifices they make to find safety far from their homes.”

“There are many stories about refugees, but rarely do producers and news editors give refugee-seekers the opportunity to tell their own story,” said Chris White, executive producer of POV. “Midnight Traveler is an urgent corrective, not only to that tendency, but to our current moment’s hostility toward a diffuse group of people who share the most basic human instinct: to find a safe home.”