Shocking, devastating and unflinchingly real. KOMO News' Eric Johnson looks at the heroin crisis in Seattle.
Social & External
The people behind it
Eric Johnson
Self - Reporter
The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.
In 2017, 20 years after Hype! (1996), filmmaker Doug Pray made a new short documentary featuring updated conversations with some of the personalities and bands who participated in the original documentary about the Seattle music scene and the Grunge movement.
Mother-of-two Judy Malinowski, then 31, was doused in gasoline and set on fire by her crazed boyfriend – and one of the first ever to testify from beyond the grave, at the trial for her own murder. A story that lives at the intersection of true crime and #MeToo, THE FIRE THAT TOOK HER goes deep inside a landmark case to ask a timely question: How much must women suffer in order to be believed?
Cocaine has always gotten a bad rap, and for a reason. It is a drug used by the rich and the poor legally and illegally, Mexican cartels fought over it with Colombia once associated with the brutal cocaine wars, and a source of tension between the American and Mexican borders on the people who are illicitly bringing in cocaine from one side of the border to another and will do anything to do it. So it can be surprising at times to the viewer throughout the course of the documentary special, that it was never always like this.
Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).
There are over 6,000 languages in the world. We lose one every two weeks. Hundreds will be lost within the next generation. By the end of this century, half of the world's languages will have vanished. Language Matters with Bob Holman is a two hour documentary that asks: What do we lose when a language dies? What does it take to save a language?
Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines".
Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.
A documentary on the once promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. The friendship between respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor, escalated into bitter rivalry as the Dandy Warhols garnered major international success while the Brian Jonestown Massacre imploded in a haze of drugs.
A two hour interview between Jonathan Doe and Amanda Taylor, who murdered her father-in-law and then took a selfie with the body and posted it online.
In 1971 September met four young men in a garden in Gentofte. They wanted to make a band. And they soon found out that they could joke his way to one hit after another. A handful of years later had their playful approach made them Denmark's largest orchestra. But if success came easily to them, it was also their biggest problem. For besides they were hit by alcoholism and stage directing, they faced one overriding dilemma: Should they stick to the happy drengerøvs tone (young men who appear to be young, immature or inexperienced or who behave childishly), they had so much luck, or trying to become adults?
Set in Hong Kong, the narcotics documentary Opium: The White Powder Opera (1976-77) was commissioned by a British television station. Yung, its associate producer and cinematographer, joined the surveillance team of the Narcotics Bureau to acquaint himself with the workings of the drug trade. This paved the way for The System. In addition to the cat-and-mouse game between the cops and the druglord, a fascinating thread traces the relationship among dealers, junkies and mules in Sai Ying Pun. The title hails from Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, another tragedy concerned with a capitalist society’s oppressed and exploited nobodies.
Two young documentary filmmakers follow an up and coming musician by the name of JØHN through his life, creative process, and journey towards becoming the biggest pop star in the world
A child who just loved to skate from the age of eight, Poppy Starr Olsen became the number one female bowl skater in Australia at 14 and went on to take out bronze at the XGames at 17 - the ultimate competition in the world of skateboarding. The same year, skateboarding was announced as an official additional sport category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Now faced with the opportunity to represent Australia on the world stage Poppy grapples with the transition from skater to athlete and the pressure of competition mounts in a way it has never done before.
Documentary film about the therapy facility ‘Violetta Clean’, founded in Berlin in 1983, the first inpatient therapy facility in Germany for drug-addicted girls and women.
With unprecedented access to the team, we go on a journey of redemption. Set against the backdrop of the rise of soccer in America, the film captures the beauty of the game as never before. But the heart of the movie is the examination of the people who come from all over the world to pursue a goal together. Each brings his own talents,but also his own indelible childhood experiences and family dynamics, which allows us to explore our own.
Chronicles of a male homosexual drug addict in 1980's in voice-over with long take scenes from Rome, television snippets of news of Gulf War and commercials.
A man tries to get a group of young people trapped in drugs out through philosophy.
Hailed as one of the most innovative and intimate documentaries of all time, experience Kurt Cobain like never before in the only ever fully authorized portrait of the famed music icon. Academy Award nominated filmmaker Brett Morgen expertly blends Cobain's personal archive of art, music, never seen before movies, animation and revelatory interviews from his family and closest friends.
This documentary examines the Seattle scene as it became the focus of a merging of punk rock, heavy metal, and innovation. Building from the grass roots, self-promoted and self-recorded until break-out success of bands like Nirvana brought the record industry to the Pacific Northwest, a phenomenon was born.
This documentary about teenagers living on the streets in Seattle began as a magazine article. The film follows nine teenagers who discuss how they live by panhandling, prostitution, and petty theft.
This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.
Join Louis Theroux as he investigates the affect crystal meth addiction is having on the local community of Fresno in California's Central Valley.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
Americans consume 75% of the world’s prescription drugs. After losing his own brother to the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse, documentarian Chris Bell sets out to demystify this insidious addiction. Bell’s examination into the motives of big pharma and doctors in this ever-growing market leads him to meet with experts on the nature of addiction, survivors with first-hand accounts of their struggle, and whistleblowers who testify to the dollar-driven aims of pharmaceutical corporations. Ultimately his investigation will point back to where it all began: his own front door.
To a growing number of Mexicans and Latinos in the Americas, narco-traffickers have become iconic outlaws and the new models of fame and success. They represent a pathway out of the ghetto, nurturing a new American dream fueled by the war on drugs. Narco Cultura looks at this explosive phenomenon from within, exposing cycles of addiction to money, drugs, and violence that are rapidly gaining strength on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border
In the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and destroyed impoverished communities at home and abroad. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever. Where did we go wrong?
In this true-crime documentary, a charismatic rebel in 1990s Seattle pulls off an unprecedented string of bank robberies straight out of the movies.
The documentary is an immersive chronicle of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when thousands of American citizens from across the country gathered in Washington D.C. to protest the results of the 2020 presidential election, many with the intent of disrupting the certification of Joe Biden's presidency.
The story of artist Lil Peep from his birth in Long Island and meteoric rise as a genre blending pop star & style icon, to his death due to an accidental opioid overdose in Arizona at just 21 years of age.
While investigating the furtive world of illegal doping in sports, director Bryan Fogel connects with renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov—a pillar of his country’s “anti-doping” program. Over dozens of Skype calls, urine samples, and badly administered hormone injections, Fogel and Rodchenkov grow closer despite shocking allegations that place Rodchenkov at the center of Russia’s state-sponsored Olympic doping program.
Carved from over 1,200 hours of footage spanning the band’s career, Pearl Jam: Twenty is the definitive portrait of Pearl Jam. Part concert film, part intimate insider-hang, and part testimonial to the power of music.
Follow Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person to ever free solo climb Yosemite's 3,000 foot high El Capitan wall. With no ropes or safety gear, this would arguably be the greatest feat in rock climbing history.
A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity
Acclaimed for his unfiltered reporting and deadpan humor, Andrew Callaghan brings his gonzo style reporting to the undercurrents that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot. As one of the best-known and hardest working journalists of his generation, the 25-year-old ventures on a wild RV journey through America to take the pulse of a divided nation.
Riding Giants is story about big wave surfers who have become heroes and legends in their sport. Directed by the skateboard guru Stacy Peralta.