What is it with all the doc-filmmakers turning to podcasting?!? No, not us… we’re talkin’ about David Modigliani—a playwright turned poet turned documentary filmmaker turned podcaster (and Stanley Tucci voice director). This is a fun walk with an old friend at a park rumored to be populated by peacocks!

The director of 2008’s CRAWFORD (about a small town invaded by George W. Bush) and 2019’s RUNNING WITH BETO (a quixotic look at Beto O’Rouke’s life on the campaign trail), David is back in Austin for 36-hours to emcee the Home Slice Pizza Carnival and crash his old improv troupe, so naturally we dragged him through rocky trails and past $10 million homes to talk about his winding path from the Michener Center Grad program to doc-making, to his latest creation: PACK ONE BAG, an investigative podcast about his grandparents’ escape from fascist Italy that premiered at Tribeca in 2024.

David speaks from personal experience (and with his hands) about why improv is basically documentary directing, how hybridized narrative podcasting allowed him to write dialogue for Stanley Tucci as his great-grandfather—and what it means to metabolize democracy's fragility in this troubled time. Plus: bubbling ponds of coy fish, finding a peacock carved in stone, and David voices his Italian grandparents' (as he does in his podcast) with glee.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at The Long Time—a 5-acre event-space and playground for your imagination. It’s also the home field of The Texas Playboys (the sandlot baseball team that both Ben and David play for) and an ideal location for film productions! For more information go to thelongtime.com and follow along on IG @thelongtimetexas.

For more information go to thelongtime.com and follow along on IG @thelongtimetexas

DISCUSSION LINKS: CRAWFORD (2008) | DONT LOOK BACK (1967) | RUNNING WITH BETO (2019) | PACK ONE BAG (2024) | BOYHOOD (2014) | MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (2024) | BLUE MOON (2025) | HIT MAN (2023)

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction and Setup at Mayfield Park

02:00 Shoutouts: Chris Floyd, Pizza Champion & Austin Sayers' Steve Fromholz Doc

04:00 Finding Our Footing on Rocky Trails

07:00 The Santa Fe Grandparent Babysitting Setup

10:00 From Playwriting to Documentary: The Michener Center Years

13:00 Crawford Origins: Mini DV and Cindy Sheehan

17:00 Improv as Documentary Directing

21:00 The Yes-And of Verite Filmmaking

24:00 Houses Documentary Filmmakers Will Never Live In

26:00 The Grip's Advice: Get Feedback While You Can

30:00 Branded Content as Film School

34:00 Wounded Warrior Project and MSNBC

37:00 Pack One Bag: Fleeing Fascist Italy

42:00 Why Audio? Creative Nonfiction and Invented Archival

46:00 Writing Dialogue for Stanley Tucci

50:00 Playwriting Meets Podcasting

54:00 The HBO Bus Billboard Moment

58:00 Audio's Frictionless Distribution

01:03:00 What's Next: Italian Version and Screen Adaptation

01:05:00 Lightning Round: Don't Look Back, Linklater Dreams, Fatherhood

01:10:00 Metabolizing the Political Moment

01:12:00 David Does His Grandparents' Voices

YouTube Tags:

David Modigliani, Crawford documentary, Pack One Bag podcast, Running with Beto, HBO documentary, Stanley Tucci, Michener Center, UT Austin, documentary filmmaking, podcast production, investigative podcast, fascist Italy, creative nonfiction, improv comedy, Austin filmmakers, Richard Linklater, DA Pennebaker, Dont Look Back, branded content, audio storytelling