TV Review: Disney+ Revives People & Places With a New Generation of Personal Stories
Nearly 70 years after Walt Disney launched People & Places as a series of travelogues that celebrated the diversity of human experience around the globe, the brand has returned in a new form and with a deeper focus on the personal. The latest collection of shorts on Disney+ revives the name People & Places, but these modern entries feel more intimate than globe-trotting. While the original films often looked outward at cultural traditions, natural wonders, or whole communities, the 2025 revival zooms in, telling four poignant stories centered on identity, family, and personal legacy.
Each film opens with a nostalgic black-and-white globe spinning to the tune of a wistful violin, an elegant nod to the series' vintage roots, but the aesthetics and voices here are thoroughly contemporary. Collectively, the four new shorts play like a curated mini film festival. They're uneven in tone and execution, but unified by a sense of humanity and belonging.
The Academy (21 min)
Directed by Julia Jansch
The Academy introduces viewers to Aziel, a young South African woman preparing for a yacht race around Robben Island - the same place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years. This beautifully shot doc contrasts the weight of that legacy with the freedom Aziel finds on the water, where sailing (long considered a white man's sport) becomes a vehicle of transformation and pride. The short doesn’t hinge on whether Aziel wins; rather, it celebrates her place in the sport and the sea that raised her. It’s emblematic of what this series does best: blending the personal with the historical.
Camp Alec (18 min)
Directed by Christopher Stoudt
Camp Alec follows a sleepaway camp in Michigan for children who are nonspeaking and use augmentative communication devices. The film is a tender mosaic of the campers’ experiences, shaped around real-time moments of connection, joy, and self-expression. Founded in memory of Alec, who died at age 15, the camp fosters a profound sense of community and possibility. This vérité-style short lets the kids' voices (both literal and metaphorical) shine.
I Scream, You Scream (9 min)
Directed by Ashley Brandon
The most stylized of the collection, I Scream, You Scream blends documentary with reenactment to follow Geron “Showtime," an ice cream vendor with dreams of rekindling his DJ days alongside his musically gifted son. While its visual grain and narrative inventiveness set it apart, the short veers into feeling more like a music video than a grounded portrait. Still, it’s a creative exploration of generational dreams and reconnection.
Sophie and the Baron (31 min)
Directed by Alexandria Jackson
This artistic collaboration between legendary Rolling Stone photographer Baron Wolman and rising visual artist Sophie Kipner is a loving tribute to creative legacy. At 31 minutes, it runs a bit long, but fans of classic rock photography will find the cross-generational dialogue compelling. The short also acts as a subtle eulogy (Wolman died shortly after production) and the result is an unexpectedly moving reflection on mentorship and artistic reinvention.
Together, these four shorts signal that Disney’s People & Places is not simply a revival but an evolution. Where the originals focused on external wonders, these new entries look inward, often framing intimate character studies against vast social and cultural backdrops. Like Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó, last year’s Oscar-nominated breakout, the best of these films turn the personal into the universal.
Not every short lands with the same emotional weight or cinematic polish, but all contribute to a larger mosaic of human experience, presented with the trademark optimism and accessibility Disney is known for. Longtime fans of the studio’s documentary legacy will find something to admire here, while new viewers may be surprised by how much heart is packed into these bite-sized stories.