If you're a fan of documentaries, you don't need me to tell you about the long-running PBS series "POV," which has been airing documentary films since 1988.

But you might not know that Simon Kilmurry, the executive director of "POV" for the past five years, is coming to Omaha.

Kilmurry will be at Film Streams' Ruth Sokolof Theater, 14th and Mike Fahey Streets, at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 15 to give Omahans a behind-the-scenes look at the show, including clips from movies that will air in the year ahead.

The event is free. Reserve a seat by emailing Maggie Wood at maggie@filmstreams.org or pick up a ticket at the Film Streams box office.

Kilmurry said he hopes some area filmmakers will be in the audience.

"It's important to put a face to an organization, make that personal connection," Kilmurry said by phone recently from his office in New York City. "If we can tell them what we're looking for, how they can reach out to us with their work, that would be fantastic."

Kilmurry said PBS airs more independent films than any place else. American Documentary, the nonprofit that produces "POV," sometimes gets involved in the earliest idea stages of a film and helps get it made. Other times it enters the picture at the rough-cut stage or makes a deal to air a finished movie it had no part in making.

"We don't get involved with just a paper idea," Kilmurry said. "For example, with 'My Perestroika,' we saw 10 minutes of footage, listened to the filmmaker and got confident with her storytelling ability."

What is POV looking for in a movie? Kilmurry had a ready answer to that.

"We are looking at storytelling. It's got to engage an audience. We're looking for strong characters, subjects that may not be broadly known or understood. Or a new take on a familiar topic. Stories that surprise us, make us question our assumptions."

He's also looking for a level of artistry in storytelling, for moviemakers who take creative risks. For nuance and humor, when appropriate, in dealing with complex subjects. And for films that are unafraid to take a point of view, either from characters in the movie or from the moviemakers.

And the movie has to be accessible to a broad audience. A good documentary, he said, engages and builds dialogue rather than lectures to an audience.

The art form has come a long way in recent years, Kilmurry said.

"It used to be that documentaries were boring, educational, told us what to think. They didn't entertain us. I think there's been a greater understanding on the part of audiences and filmmakers that documentaries are a creative form. They are storytelling at its most basic."

The rise of reality television and documentaries have been symbiotic, he said, influencing each other as they've grown.

Kilmurry sees a lot of documentaries. When it comes down to picking the few that air on "POV," the job gets harder. He tries to pick what he thinks is some of the finest work being done both in the United States and internationally.

"We try to find a diversity of forms, of types of stories, of approaches to documentary film. There are sometimes thematic links through the series. We also try to take some chances. We ask our audience to give us their trust that we will take them somewhere surprising."

Kilmurry gets help in choosing "POV's" film lineup. Each year six PBS station programmers and six people from the independent film community gather to discuss 30 to 40 titles Kilmurry has sent them on DVD. The "POV" staff doesn't talk, just listens.

"I'm always surprised by the conversation," he said. "I make assumptions that get thrown out the window. It's interesting how, as they debate and talk about the films, their perspectives change."

One PBS representative who participated in a recent discussion was David Feingold, assistant general manager for content at Nebraska Educational Television. He invited Kilmurry to come to Nebraska.

What can people expect to see at Film Streams?

"I'm going to give them a sneak preview of a film coming up in November," he said. "And we have a number of films either finished or in production, so we'll show some clips. And we'll talk about what goes on behind the scenes, making and producing and getting these movies out to the world. We'll give you a sense of what makes a 'POV' film."