Hot Docs 2026: Public Access Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Hot Docs Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Television is an accessible and effective media form and one of the most crucial inventions in communication. Throughout its rise in the 1950s, TV took the position of radio broadcasting as the central domestic media format, shifting shows from the FM format to the small screen. As a highly accessible and popular form, it has always been subject to some form of government regulation. As a result, any program that manages to escape those regulations would simply find itself censored. In 1970s in New York, during the peak of counterculture, a public-access channel revolutionized the format. Manhattan Cable Television would transmit pornographic content and strong language under the guise of the First Amendment, allowing them to continue to air such programs. It is through this, that director David Shadrack Smith’s Public Access is born.

Within the first few minutes, the structure of Smith’s film becomes clear. Similar to Asif Kapadia’s trademark style, like Senna and Amy, he uses archival footage along with voiceover from his subject. This decision avoids the typical talking head device, providing a historical documentary that navigates through its archive with the narration of the actors. From there, audiences are treated to pixelated images shot in the 1970s, young journalists in the streets of a pre-gentrified NYC, where they attempt to extract a report from anything. In this sense, the filmmaker introduces the philosophy of the channel, which is that any content is valid. Likewise, the Manhattan Cable Television challenges the traditional structure of the system by showcasing shows that would differ from those on more traditional networks such as ABC, CBS, or NBC. Instead of controlled programs, underground audiences could watch ‘Midnight Blue’, an erotic show featuring naked women on a theater stage. Ultimately, they would thrive in the exhibition of the obscene and vulgar, contrary to the programming of the conventional networks.

Through this, Smith exposes the subversiveness of a group of media individuals who documented vital movements like the sexual revolution and the AIDS epidemic, the latter in the gay channel, one of the few frontal representations of LGBTQIA+ individuals on TV. Unlike its content, which is revolutionary, Public Access fails to compel audiences in its demonstration of a precious archive, providing a bureaucratic view of freedom. There is no flowing transition from one archive excerpt to the next, resulting in a feature that seems lost in its editorial process. All of this makes for a tiring experience, the film, running at nearly 2-hours, becomes repetitive in nature, reminding audiences of the revolutionary nature of the endeavor. Multiple subjects state the subversiveness of the gay content broadcast, but it is more extensive than the images themselves. The director attempts to evoke the strength in the oral textual aspect, instead of the most impactful form for that information: its images.  

Public Access diminishes the grandiosity of underground media that advocated for the sexual liberty, protest music, such as reggae in its musical program, and the representation of LGBTQIA+ individuals at the peak of prejudice led by the AIDS epidemic, and the misinformation about that unknown infection. All in all, these efforts amount to an underwhelming film about the revolutionary force of underground public access TV.

still courtesy of Hot Docs

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Pedro Lima

Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.