Because each of these documentarians seeks out the stories of people who might otherwise be forgotten: an eight-year-old whose grandmother taunts him to fire a gun, in Rory Kennedy’s A Boy’s Life; a woman who finally summons the courage to dial 911 after being abused by her husband for 22 years, in a Maryann DeLeo film that will premiere on Lifetime in April; a Thai woman rejected by her family when she goes home to die, in Kennedy’s Pandemic: Facing AIDS. because both took on an issue that seemed passé, nuclear power, and made it matter. because DeLeo won an Oscar for HBO’s Chernobyl Heart, which reminded us that children are being born with brains outside their bodies and holes in their hearts almost two decades after the world’s worst nuclear accident. because Kennedy irked the nuclear industry by suggesting that the Indian Point plant, in New York, might be vulnerable to terrorist attack, with results potentially more devastating than Chernobyl’s. because DeLeo says she is humbled when “people entrust you with their stories. It’s like they’re saying, Please tell the world; don’t let us be forgotten.” because Kennedy has found that “just having somebody listen to their stories is so meaningful to them.” because in spite of the pain they’ve witnessed—which Kennedy says “makes it hard to leave, but creates an enormous desire to leave”—both have long lists of new projects yet to tackle and tough questions yet to ask. because sometimes the impact of their work is tangible: Senator Patrick Leahy told Kennedy that, after seeing her 1999 film Epidemic Africa, he added $25 million to the federal budget to fight AIDS. But mostly because, although the results are harder to measure, we share the hope that through their films one heart will be touched, one mind opened, one life changed.