News

HBO Max’s The Janes was among the top winners at the 44th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Wednesday, with the film — centered on a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion network in Chicago — taking home best documentary as well as best social issue documentary.

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) presented the Documentary category winners during a live ceremony at the Palladium Times Square in New York City and streamed live on NATAS’ viewing platform powered by Vimeo, the second of a two-night celebration. The News category winners were announced in a ceremony held at the Palladium on Wednesday.

Scheduled presenters at the Thursday night Docs ceremony included HBO Documentary & Family Programming’s Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller, reporter Jelani Cobb, Nothing Compares director Kathryn Ferguson, NPR host and Is That Black Enough for You?!? writer-director Elvis Mitchell, Doc NYC co-founder Thom Powers and National Geographic correspondent Mariana van Zeller.

Festival

Zurich Film Festival has revealed the lineup for its Hashtag section, which is devoted to “a topic that is trending on social media,” the event said Thursday. This year’s section screens films under the title #MyReligion, and deals with “questions of faith, euphoria and modern deities.”

“Whether in the U.S.A., Russia or the Middle East, we are seeing a comeback of religions,” Christian Jungen, Zff artistic director, said. “This often leads to conflicts in coexistence within multicultural societies. That’s why this year we are concentrating our efforts on the topic of faith, its merits and its dark sides. But we are also highlighting the substitute religions that are out there now for secular people, such as the Tiktok cult.”

The selected films are Adamma Ebo’s comedy “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.,” Tarik Saleh’s thriller “Boy From Heaven,” Tarik Saleh’s coming-of-age drama “The Realm of God,...

TikTok, the omnipresent video-based social-media app that launched five years ago, has always seemed a less serious, more frivolously youthquakey destination than a number of other online networking services — most obviously Facebook. Yet as Shalini Kantayya’s sprightly, informative documentary “TikTok, Boom.” makes clear, there are more levels to the TikTok phenomenon than there are to almost any other blockbuster app.

There are the countless people who consume it: the kids from all over the world who get addicted to watching the up-to-three-minute-long videos as if they were popping Sour Patch Kids. There are the people who are on it: the makers of those videos, who could be just about anyone and might be doing it just for kicks, though what a lot of them want to be, if they can go viral enough, are influencers — the elite echelon of TikTok stars who have made themselves over into brands, based...

The much-anticipated follow-up to her excellent documentary Coded Bias, Shalini Kantayya’s TikTok, Boom. doesn’t quite know what to make of the addicting viral app—a larger story than simply one about those kids today and their “content creation.” The issue at hand is the narrative builds to what might have been a thrilling geopolitical showdown (had a certain President been re-elected) that never came to pass. Covering TikTok for the business, user, and geopolitical angles, it aims to be comprehensive as it darts between multiple perspectives—the users, creators, activists, journalists, and lawyers fighting privacy battles.

Developed by Byte Dance of Beijing, the company has two products: its heavily regulated Chinese version Douyin, which is so sensitive even a tattoo or bleached hair will prevent a user from going live; and TikTok, its global platform. Founded in a small apartment by Zhang Yiming, the platform is primarily a...

Film and Television Reviews

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‘Am I Ok?’ Review: Dakota Johnson Charms Her Way Through a New Kind of Sex Comedy

‘Jihad Rehab’ Review: A Provocative Look Inside the Spa-Like Saudi Facility that Tries to Re-Educate Terrorists

‘Navalny’ Review: CNN’s Thriller-Like Doc Goes Inside Putin’s Failed Attempt to Assassinate His Rival

Sundance Indie Episodic Program Looks to the Past to Escape a Grim Present

‘Blood’ Review: ‘Wetlands’ Star Carla Juri Grieves Through a Meandering Soul Search in Japan

‘Dos Estaciones’ Review: The Owner of a Tequila Factory Struggles to Stay Afloat in Sobering Docudrama

‘My Old School’ Review: A One-of-a-Kind Alan Cumming Performance Undone by Shrug-Worthy Hoax

‘Happening’ Review: Captivating Venice Winner Takes a Clear-Eyed View of Abortion

‘Palm Trees and Power Lines’ Review: Breakout Lily McInerny Boosts Painfully Honest Coming-of-Age Tale

‘The American Dream and...

The rise of the youth-favored app TikTok in the last few years would seem to provide material for a comedy about American materialism and thirst for popular attention, but director Shalini Kantayya’s wide-ranging documentary “TikTok, Boom.” lets us see that this story is actually more like the ominous basis for a kind of thriller about how the Chinese government might be harvesting data about young users throughout the world.

It all began in 2012 with Zhang Yiming, a Chinese internet entrepreneur who — from humble beginnings in a dreary, Ikea-furnished office — created Douyin, an app on which Chinese youth posted videos and got some very capitalist opportunities to take money to shill for products. One young male user was paid to talk up Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but later in the film he tells us that the app will not allow anyone to post who has tattoos or has...