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Independent Lens is broadcast on most PBS stations on Tuesdays at 10:00 p.m.
Please check the broadcast schedule. Dates and times may vary.
Arts & Culture
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When lesbian music student Kristina Boerger moved to a small Illinois college town, she didn’t find a ready-made community. So she created one with what she loved best: choral singing. Assembling a ragtag group of volunteers, she created the area’s first lesbian choir. Showing the choir’s evolution into a nationally accepted and recognized award-winning ensemble, THE AMASONG CHORUS documents how the spirit and dedication of one person can help transform a community.
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Think origami is just paper planes and cranes? Meet a determined group of theoretical scientists and fine artists who have abandoned careers and scoffed at hard-earned graduate degrees to forge new lives as modern-day paper folders. Together they reinterpret the world in paper, creating a wild mix of sensibilities towards art, science, creativity and meaning.
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As Duke Ellington's co-composer, arranger, and right-hand man, Billy Strayhorn wrote some of the greatest American music of the 20th century. But as a gay man in the '40s and '50s, Strayhorn had to lead a discreet existence, while Ellington played to thunderous applause on center stage. BILLY STRAYHORN: Lush Life tells the story of the unheralded man who changed jazz and popular music forever, maintaining artistic and personal integrity, while challenging prejudice along the way.
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She's a best-selling author with dreadlocks. A single mother and "sober alcoholic" who is both a born-again Christian and a liberal activist. Anne Lamott shares her own moving story of a survivor and iconoclast, offering wise and funny insights into everything from loss and faith to retail therapy and gorillas.
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BROTHER TO BROTHER
by Rodney Evans
Co-presentation with the National Black Programming Consortium
June 14, 2005
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After being rejected by his family, Perry (Anthony Mackie), a struggling young artist, befriends an elderly stranger—Bruce Nugent (Roger Robinson), the black gay writer who co-founded the revolutionary journal Fire!! Through Nugent’s memories, Perry discovers the legacies of the gay and lesbian subcultures within the Harlem Renaissance.
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Eighty-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani survived the trauma of internment camps, Hiroshima and homelessness by creating art. But when 9/11 threatens his life on the New York City streets and a local filmmaker brings him to her home, the two embark on a journey to confront Jimmy's painful past. THE CATS OF MIRIKITANI is an intimate exploration of the lingering wounds of war and the healing powers of friendship and art. Produced in association with ITVS and CAAM.
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CHAVEZ RAVINE
by Jordan Mechner, Don Normark, Andrew Andersen and Mark Moran
June 7, 2005
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Narrated by Cheech Marin and scored by Ry Cooder, CHAVEZ RAVINE captures how a community was betrayed by greed, political hypocrisy and good intentions gone astray. Don Normark’s haunting photographs bring back to life a Mexican American village—razed in the 1950s to build Dodger Stadium—in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.
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COMPAÑERAS
by Elizabeth Massie and Matthew Buzzell
April 1, 2008
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COMPAÑERAS profiles America's first all-female mariachi band, Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles. Founded in 1994, the 12 members of Reyna shatter age-old stereotypes while expanding the popularity of mariachi music. In a culture and a musical tradition that has always been male-dominated, these women are true pioneers, literally giving voice to Latinas.
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For a decade—1956 to 1966—the Ferus Gallery was the catalyst of a nascent modern art scene, grooming idealistic beatniks into competitive, often-brilliant artists. It also helped to solidify the careers of many of New York's shining stars including: Lichtenstein, Warhol and Johns. What was lost and gained is a complex web of egos, passions, money and art.
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D TOUR
by Jim Granato
November 20, 2007
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Pat Spurgeon has big dreams to make it as an indie rock musician. Just as his career is about to take off, he suffers an incredible setback when one of his kidneys begins to fail. Follow Pat on his emotional search for a living organ donor. But can he balance his health with a rock 'n’ roll lifestyle?
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DOC
by Immy Humes
December 9, 2008
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A biography of literary figure Harold Louis "Doc" Humes by his daughter, DOC tells the story of a life crammed full of ideas about politics, literature and protest. Exploring Doc's paranoia and mental illness, this homemade, improvisational piece sheds light on an original mind as well as the cultural history of postwar America.
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As Hollywood stuntwomen for Wonder Woman and Xena: Warrior Princess, Jeannie Epper and Zoë Bell have been set on fire, thrown off buildings, dragged by wild horses and hit by cars. Who are the real women behind these two television icons? DOUBLE DARE follows their daily struggles to stay employed, stay thin and stay sane in this notoriously macho profession.
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An artist and self-proclaimed “old Chinese lady” sets out to explore her own identity and prove that it’s never too late to take a risk by making her first film in her 60s. The result? An experimental program that expresses her roots in two countries through self-effacing humor, double-exposed images and an immigrant’s long look back at her native China.
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DOWNSIDE UP
by Nancy Kelly
Co-presented by WMHT/Schenectady
February 25, 2003
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How does a dying working class town end up betting its future on art? With 80 percent of its downtown buildings closed, North Adams, Massachusetts united blue-collar locals with art world luminaries to transform economic failure into America's largest center for contemporary art, MASS MoCA. A film by North Adams native Nancy Kelly, DOWNSIDE UP is about the tentative, dangerous notion of hope in a city widely viewed as hopeless.
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In 1974, a new sound hit New York City’s underground music scene: a band of misfits called The Ramones. Follow this quartet of unlikely rock stars, known as the progenitors of punk, through more than two decades of touring, recording and bickering—from their shared childhood in Queens to their 2002 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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EROICA!
by Alan Miller
December 9, 2003
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Three young and sexy musicians are changing the face of classical music. One of the first all-female chamber ensembles to reach the top echelons of their field, the Eroica Trio is helping to break an age-old gender barrier. The film follows the group and the composer of their latest work as they scramble to finish preparations for the debut while balancing their busy lives as spouses and parents.
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In his life and his work, acclaimed Afro-Cuban-Puerto Rican poet Piri Thomas has used creative expression as a means to confront and overcome poverty, racism, violence and isolation. Author of the acclaimed autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets, Thomas, through poetry, stories and performances, chronicles his journey from Spanish Harlem to prison to life as an author, educator and activist.
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The 1975 Maysles brothers cult classic Grey Gardens told the story of the eccentric and often humorous mother-daughter relationship between Edith Beale and her daughter Edie—aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. GREY GARDENS: From East Hampton to Broadway looks at how their lives set the stage for the Maysles film and later the Broadway musical, both of which have impacted the art, entertainment and fashion communities.
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Her Depression-era pictures stunned 1930s audiences with their beauty, intimacy and unflinching visions of the poor, the unlucky and the oppressed. HANSEL MIETH traces the journey of one of America's great photographers from provincial Germany to the pages of Life magazine, where she set the standard for socially concerned artists.
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He was a postal clerk. She was a librarian. With modest means, this couple managed to build one of the most important modern art collections in history. Meet Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, whose shared passion and commitment defied stereotypes and redefined what it means to be an art collector.
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You can't escape if you try—it's on your computer, the subway, U.S. mailboxes, IRS tax forms, and spells out countless corporate logos from Target to Fendi. No doubt, Helvetica is the king of fonts. But why? To find the answer, first-time Director Gary Hustwit meets with historians and designers whose passion for typefaces run high, and discovers the secrets behind the fonts we use and read every day.
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HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes takes an in-depth look at machismo in rap music and hip-hop culture—where creative genius, poetic beauty and mad beats collide with misogyny, violence and homophobia. Produced in association with ITVS and NPBC.
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Jazz balladeer Jimmy Scott informs his art with lessons learned from 78 hard-lived years of failure and redemption. Through international concert footage, portraiture and intimate interviews, this oft-sidelined jazz immortal, whose soft sensuality and impossibly high voice are legendary, recounts his stranger-than-fiction odyssey through poverty and obscurity to worldwide recognition as one of the most distinctive and revered vocalists of our time.
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King rocker and legendary front man of the Clash Joe Strummer is hot on the comeback trail, touring America and Japan via concert footage and interviews before his untimely death in 2002.
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Legendary jazz bassist Milt Hinton (1910–2000) was also a skilled photographer and storyteller. Using archival footage, hundreds of photographs and interviews with Hinton and fellow musicians such as Branford Marsalis and Quincy Jones, KEEPING TIME is an insider’s view of jazz and life in 20th-century America.
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Legendary Afro-Cuban pop singer Lupe Victoria Yoli, was crowned "The Queen of Latin Soul" by New York's Latin music scene in the 1960s. Renowned for her emotional performances, La Lupe remains the quintessential bad girl, dying tragically, virtually unknown in 1992. Shot in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the U.S., LA LUPE tells her story through interviews and rare archival footage from the groundbreaking musical era. Produced in assocation with ITVS and LPB.
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Tracing the history of professional bowling in America, from its glory days in the 1950s to its near extinction by the late 1990s, A LEAGUE OF ORDINARY GENTLEMEN follows four pro bowlers as Professional Bowlers Association CEO Steve Miller sets out to modernize the sport.
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A LION'S TRAIL
by Francois Verster, Dan Jawitz and Mark J. Kaplan
April 5, 2005
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How was an illiterate Zulu musician responsible for one of America’s most popular songs? Although Solomon Linda’s “Mbube” provided the melody for the pop classic “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” Linda never received a penny for his efforts. Traveling between South Africa and America, A LION’S TRAIL celebrates the song’s timeless power while revealing injustices within the international recording industry.
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LIVERMORE
by Rachel Raney and
David Murray
November 25, 2003
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Part history, part mystery, part comedy, LIVERMORE is an offbeat look at one eccentric California town. Meet a memorable cast of local armchair historians who describe some of Livermore's legends—a super-natural light bulb, a cursed totem pole, a scandalous book of photographs and the ominous nuclear lab. In an age of sprawl and coast-to-coast homogenization, LIVERMORE is a celebration of old-fashioned civic pride.
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A frustrated filmmaker who is captivated by Emily Dickinson’s poetry searches for “flashes of insight” beyond those offered by experts such as actress Julie Harris and U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. He turns to shrinks, a stand-up comic, a rock band and dozens of actresses who recite poems and improvise Dickinsonian answers to questions about God, death and love—resulting in a playful rethinking of the elusive belle of Amherst.
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In 1978, Oakley Hall was a promising playwright on the verge of national recognition when a mysterious fall violently transformed his life. THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS is the haunting story of a young man's decline, the vibrant artists who surrounded him and what happens when—decades later—a theater company discovers the very play he was writing the night he fell.
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Since 1933, The Hackberry Ramblers have played an infectious, toe-tapping blend of Cajun music and Western swing. Part biography, part road movie, this documentary captures the poignant and funny exploits of these “agin’ ragin’ Cajuns,” from a Bayou crawfish boil to MTV to their first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry.
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MIRROR DANCE
by Frances McElroy and Maria T. Rodriguez
Co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting
November 15, 2005
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Identical twins Margarita and Ramona de Saá were acclaimed ballerinas with the National Ballet of Cuba. Once inseparable, their relationship disintegrated as one sister left for America while the other embraced the Cuban Revolution. MIRROR DANCE is the story of two women forever linked by birth and dance, struggling to overcome rifts not only between sisters, but also between nations.
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For more than 50 years, the Miss Navajo Nation beauty pageant has given its contestants opportunities to showcase not only their beauty but also their skills in dance, music and sheep slaughtering. Following contestants in their quest for the crown, and featuring personal stories of recent winners, MISS NAVAJO is a celebration of womanhood.
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The intersection of art and life are at the core of MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT, a musical journey featuring the 105 musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra. The film focuses on the mystery and magic of music itself, creating a mosaic of the stories, ideas and experiences that form the heart of these musicians’ lives inside and outside the concert hall.
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Every year, the residents of Dorchester County, Maryland look forward to the biggest weekend of the year: The National Outdoor Show. On the same stage as the muskrat-skinning contest, high school girls compete to win the title of queen of the show. This portrait of a close-knit Chesapeake Bay community traces the events leading up to the 50th crowning of Miss Outdoors.
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Following legendary teacher Robert Cazimero and the only all-male hula school in Hawaii, NA KAMALEI: The Men of Hula goes beyond deep-rooted stereotypes of "grass skirt girls" and reveals a story of Hawaiian pride through the exploration of male roles in the hula tradition—past and present.
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They took Hollywood by storm—escaping the brutal Soviet oppression of the Hungarian Revolution and rising to fame with classic films like Easy Rider, Deliverance, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Deer Hunter. Cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond pioneered the “American New Wave,” defining innovative ways to tell stories. This is an intimate portrait of the 50-year journey of two giants of modern image making and their deep bond of brotherhood that transcended every imaginable boundary.
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How does the design of your cell phone, toothbrush or couch impact your life? Did you ever stop to think about it? Director Gary Hustwit (HELVETICA) looks at our complex relationship with manufactured objects, the people who design them and the creative process behind their work. Step inside the offices of the world’s most influential product designers to see how these objects influence us—oftentimes without us even knowing it.
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You write a poem—they'll make a song out of it. Welcome to the little known underworld of the song-poem, where make-your-own record companies churn out some of America's strangest music, transforming amateurs' heartfelt and often bizarre words into professionally-produced recordings.
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OFF THE MAP
An Electric Shadows / ITVS Interactive Project
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Using multimedia tours to look into backyard paradises created by visionary artists around the world, OFF THE MAP uses the Web to explore an astounding phenomenon--the drive for untrained artists to permanently transform their environment by creating monumental art.
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On an isolated Maine island of 350 people, a clash over arts education spins out of control into vandalism and death threats, tearing apart friends and neighbors. John Wulp, a former Broadway producer who retired to the island, creates an original musical about the island's life, attempting to heal the community's wounds through songs about lobstering, loneliness and the beauty of the sea. Narrated by Sigourney Weaver and featuring performances by three generations of islanders.
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In Los Angeles, there’s only one place where you can celebrate the synchronicity of an old-school Chinatown establishment, classic jazz, DJ culture and the underground dance scene: the Grand Star. Find out how this restaurant became one of the city’s liveliest and most intergenerational and culturally integrated neighborhood nightclubs.
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In this surprising allegory of America's involvement in Iraq, an Iraqi film student, Muthana Mohmed—whose school was destroyed by American bombs—lands a dream job working on a Hollywood movie in the West. On set, idealistic expectations and cultural misunderstandings collide launching Muthana on a journey more complicated than either he or his American benefactors ever anticipated.
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George Clinton: mastermind behind the band Parliament Funkadelic. Find out how he expressed the cultural alienation of young African Americans, creating an alternate universe of “aliens” who brought the redemptive power of funk to a world sorely in need of a new point of view.
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Most Americans don’t know that Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) drew editorial cartoons for a left-wing New York newspaper during World War II. How many of his readers know that Yertle the Turtle was modeled on Hitler, or that Horton Hears a Who! is a parable about postwar Japan? This film explores a little-known side of Dr. Seuss and his works.
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Each July for more than 30 years, polka lovers from around the United States have descended on the tiny rural town of Gibbon, Minnesota for the Gibbon Polka Fest. Meet numerous “polka people” and performers as they demonstrate their love and hope for the future of polka through dance, music, personal stories and observations.
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RACE IS THE PLACE
by Rick Tejada-Flores and Ray Telles
Co-presentation with the National Minority Consortia and KERA/Dallas
November 22, 2005
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How do American artists address our nation's most pressing social issue?
Using spoken, sung and chanted word, African American, Latino, Asian
American, Pacific Islander and Native American afuthors, performance
artists, poets and singers explore the pain, frustration and humor of
racism in America.
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REVOLUCION tells the story of five Cuban photographers whose lives and work span more than four decades and whose perspectives on photography are as varied as their opinions about the Cuban Revolution. From Epic-era photographers whose lens portrayed the heroic masses to more contemporary photographers who seek to portray individual truths, their stories discover the power of art to liberate.
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In his preface to John Fante’s 1939 novel, Ask the Dust, Charles Bukowski wrote, “...that book was a wild and enormous miracle to me.” Based on the 1939 masterpiece, the documentary A SAD FLOWER IN THE SAND illustrates Fante’s deep-rooted love of the city of Los Angeles—a film about a dream and a city of dreamers.
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This autobiographical Peabody Award-winning film traces Paul Fierlinger’s tumultuous life from Stalinist Czechoslovakia to the U.S., as seen through his relationships with his dogs. Sustained by loyalty and caring for these animals—even in an atmosphere of oppression and suspicion—each dog serves as a marker of its master's personal growth, from a misanthrope to an artist who appreciates the divine powers of nature.
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STOLEN
by Rebecca Dreyfus and Susannah Ludwig
March 20, 2007
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In 1990, two thieves dressed as police officers gained entrance to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, successfully executing the largest art heist in modern history. Among the 13 priceless works lifted was Vermeer's The Concert, thought to be the world's most valuable stolen painting. STOLEN thoroughly explores the theft and the fascinating, disparate characters involved.
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Radio stations banned it, but when Billie Holiday sang "Strange Fruit" the whole world listened anyway. Drawing on courage, genius and luck, a little-known Jewish songwriter and African American icon created the song that not only altered the course of their own lives but changed America forever.
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SUMO EAST AND WEST
by Ferne Pearlstein and Robert Edwards
Co-presented by the Center for Asian American Media
and Pacific Islanders in Communications
June 8, 2004
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In recent years, the ancient art of sumo has witnessed the rise of an increasing number of foreigners to the top of its professional ranks. From Hawaii to Atlantic City, the experiences of American wrestlers provide an entertaining glimpse at the past, present and future of sumo, revealing how this former bastion of Japanese tradition is grappling with globalizing Western forces.
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TRUDELL
by Heather Rae
Co-presentation with Native American Telecommunications Association
April 11, 2006
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Native American activist and poet John Trudell fuses his radical politics with music, writing and art. Combining images and archival footage with interviews and performances, this biography reveals the philosophy and motivations behind Trudell's work and his relationship to contemporary Indian history.
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WATER FLOWING TOGETHER offers an intimate portrait of a remarkable dancer, Jock Soto, who retired from the New York City Ballet at age 40, after a 24-year career. Soto's journey as an openly gay man of Navajo Indian and Puerto Rican descent provides a rare glimpse into the life of a dancer and the disparate worlds which have shaped this important artist.
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WONDERS ARE MANY tells the story of making a grand opera about the birth of the atomic bomb. This behind-the-scenes documentary follows Composer John Adams and Director Peter Sellars over the course of a year as they work to forge the tale of J. Robert Oppenheimer into a music drama like no other: the strange and beautiful Doctor Atomic.
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WORDPLAY
by Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley
October 16, 2007
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The New York Times crossword puzzle is considered one of the most difficult in America. Every day millions of people attempt to solve the mind-boggling game. WORDPLAY presents an entertaining and informative look at the editor of the crossword, Will Shortz, and the puzzle constructors with whom he collaborates. This acclaimed film is an engaging portrait of a community of crossword lovers everywhere.
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Exploring the drama and complexities behind producing international versions of the world’s most popular children’s television program and created in cooperation with the show itself, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SESAME STREET illustrates how social impact can come from the most seemingly unlikely sources, including a team of Muppets.
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An exhilarating look at the work of the Brazilian-born contemporary conceptual artist and rising star Vik Muniz — sculptor, photographer and self-proclaimed magician. Muniz, best known for his book Seeing Is Believing, uses his knowledge of and interest in the history of photography to demonstrate how we, as viewers, can easily be deceived by the images around us.
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the National Endowment for the Arts