The second of two Sloan-supported documentaries to premiere on PBS this month, Gene Tempest’s MR. POLAROID premiered on May 19 as part PBS’s AMERICAN EXPERIENCE series and is now available to stream. The premiere comes on the heels of great momentum. On April 28, Deadline premiered the documentary’s trailer as an exclusive. Days later, another Sloan-supported installment of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE – Jamila Ephron’s POISONED GROUND: THE TRAGEDY AT LOVE CANAL – garnered three News & Documentary Emmys including Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary, Outstanding Writing – Documentary, and Outstanding Direction – Documentary. Tempest previously collaborated with the project’s producer Amanda Pollak on THE CANCER DETECTIVES: THE TRAILBLAZERS WHO LANDED THE FIRST BLOW AGAINST CANCER.

MR. POLAROID. Dir. Gene Tempest. Long before the iPhone, another inventive device allowed everyone to instantly chronicle their lives — the Polaroid camera. The product, and the company’s unique culture, would launch not only instant photography mania but also become the model for today’s Silicon Valley tech culture. It all began with the Polaroid Model 95, first offered for sale in the fall of 1948. Its revolutionary power to allow the photographer to see the picture then and there would change the country, then the world. Mr. POLAROID tells the little-known story of the man behind the camera, a Harvard dropout named Edwin Land. Over a half century ago, before the smartphone, Land was dreaming up “a camera that you would use as often as your pencil or your eyeglasses.” He would also come to believe his company was “on its way to lead the world — perhaps even to save it.” Hubris, technology, brilliance, and a billion photographs a year are all part of the rollicking Polaroid story. Available to stream on the American Experience website.

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