CAT RADIO CAFÉ: FILMMAKER ROBB MOSS ON THE BEND IN THE RIVER, LAST OF HIS RIVER TRILOGY

On tonight’s show, we’ll be joined by filmmaker Robb Moss, to discuss his new film A Bend in the River, the last of a generational documentary trilogy about a close-knit group of friends revisited over nearly 50 years, beginning with a clothing-optional rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, and following them and the river through the course of time, allowing his friends and his camera to reflect on the contradictions and continuities of their generation and their separate lives. The film, Executive Produced by Joel Coen and Frances McDormand, had its world premiere at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival and went on to screen aat the True/False Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival. Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and The Museum of the Moving Image

Robb Moss is a pioneer of personal documentary, and chair of the Department of Visual and Envisonmental Studies at Harvard University. His notable works include the films Containment, The Same River Twice, Secrecy, and The Tourist. He began his love affair with film as a student at UC Berkeley in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s, at M.I.T., he was a student of the legendary documentary filmmakers Ed Pincus and Richard Leacock. Moss has been nominted for the Independent Spirit Truer Than Fiction Award.

Moss began filming Barry, Danny, Cathy, Jeff and Jim in 1978 with a 16mm camera -- resulting in his short documentary, Riverdogs(1982). He resumed shooting as they came to terms with middle age for his 2003 follow-up, The Same River Twice. The final installment about Moss’ free-spirited friends navigating their way through life, The Bend in the River, now finds the group in their seventies and grappling with the choices they’ve made as individuals and as a generation. It is Executive Produced by Ethan Coen and Frances McDormand.

The Bend in the River is now playing at Film Forum and will be available in December on Netflix.

Hosted by Janet Coleman and David Dozer