Vote for the Audience Award
“It’s amazing as a filmmaker to see a story that was once hidden and unexplored connect so powerfully with the Independent Lens audience — to see millions of people discussing it online and expanding the national conversation around gender in such brilliant and humane ways. Our film team is grateful that you have embraced Two Spirits and made it yours.”— Lydia Nibley, filmmaker, Two Spirits, winner of the 2011 Independent Lens Audience Award
At film festivals, the award that often matters most to filmmakers and their subjects alike is the Audience Award. They know they’ve struck a chord when the audience applauds their efforts.
The Independent Lens audience has the opportunity to stand up and be counted by rating each film throughout the season. At the end of the season, the highest rated film is honored.
Rate the films as you see them, and help us identify this season’s audience favorite!
Click on the yellow stars (1 star being OK, 5 stars being the best) to rate the films you've seen.
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Spring Films
This five-part series chronicles the history of the global anti-apartheid movement that took on South Africa’s entrenched apartheid regime and its international supporters who considered South Africa an ally in the Cold War.
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As a black woman who was a feminist before the term was invented, Daisy Bates refused to accept her assigned place in society. Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock tells the story of her life.
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Combining startlingly fresh and candid 16mm footage that was forgotten for the past 30 years, with contemporary audio interviews from leading African American artists, activists, musicians, and scholars, this film looks at the people, society, culture, and style that fueled an era of convulsive change.
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Shukree Hassan Tilghman, a 29-year-old African American filmmaker, is on a cross-country campaign to end Black History Month. Through this thoughtful, humorous journey, More Than a Month investigates what the treatment of history tells us about race and equality in a "post-racial" America.
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Lee Gorewitz is a feisty, opinionated woman given to philosophical ruminations on the nature of things, even as she struggles to navigate the increasingly confused and confusing landscape of Alzheimer's disease. Here is one extraordinary woman who will not let us forget her — even as she struggles to remember herself.
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When Kevin Clash was a boy, he built his own puppets and staged shows for the neighborhood. Today, he is living his ultimate dream as the big man behind the little furry Muppet Elmo on Sesame Street.
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For 60 years, Haiti's most popular band, Septentrional, has survived corrupt governments, revolutions, natural disasters, extreme poverty, and national tragedy. Its joyous fusion of Cuban and Haitian beats lifts and celebrates the indomitable Haitian spirit.
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In 2006, thousands of new electric cars were purposely destroyed by the same car companies that built them. Today, less than five years later, the electric car is back ... with a vengeance.
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The bison is an enduring symbol of America, and yet it stands on the brink of collapse. Cattle ranching, urban sprawl, and sport hunting has squeezed the beast from the Great Plains it once dominated. Is there room for the American bison in America anymore?
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The Ponce family's hardscrabble circus has lived and performed on the back roads of Mexico since the 19th century. But can their way of life survive into the 21st century? Circo intimately portrays the Ponce family circus as it struggles to make a living off its artistry, sweat, and wit against the backdrop of Mexico's collapsing rural economy.
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Locho and Yama are nomadic herders in Tibet's high grasslands, who carve their existence from the land as their ancestors have for generations. As traditional nomadic life confronts rapid modernization, Summer Pasture captures a family at a crossroads, ultimately revealing the profound sacrifice they will make to ensure their daughter's future.
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When a highly successful Mexican American Studies program at a high school in Tucson comes under fire for teaching ethnic chauvinism, teachers and students fight back. This modern civil rights struggle is happening at the epicenter of the immigration debate in the age of identity politics.
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U.S. Marine Sergeant Nathan Harris, 25, leads his unit to fight a ghostlike enemy in Afghanistan. Wounded in battle, Harris returns to North Carolina and his devoted wife to fight pain, addiction, and the terrifying normalcy of life at home.
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JR, Charlene, Margarita, and Robert are half American; they are among the many children born to local women and U.S. servicemen who were stationed in military bases in the Philippines until in 1992. Their stories illuminate a generation of Filipino Amerasians who live in limbo.
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When AIDS arrived in San Francisco in 1981, it decimated a community, but also brought people together in inspiring and moving ways to support and care for one another and to fight for dignity and a cure.
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A formidable figure standing at 5'8" and weighing more than 300 pounds, Cheryl Haworth struggles to defend her champion status as her lifetime weightlifting career inches towards its inevitable end. Her journey as an elite athlete presents physical and personal challenges, including popular notions of power, strength, beauty, and health.
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Fall Films
When a Kuwaiti psychologist launches a comic series with 99 superheroes based on the 99 virtues of Allah, he runs up against suspicion from Muslims and the harsh realities of the global marketplace.
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JoEllen Marsh is 20 years old, and has never met her father. As she goes in search of her paternity, her path to Donor 150 becomes an exploration into identity and the complex permutations of family.
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Fred Fay survived a devastating spinal cord injury when he was only 16, and turned his misfortune into a movement for equality. With a small group of dedicated activists, he spearheaded the disability rights movement and changed the face of American society.
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Aneta Brodski, a deaf teen living in New York City, discovers the power of American Sign Language poetry. As she prepares to be one of the first deaf poets to compete in a youth slam, her journey leads to an unexpected collaboration.
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The Wampanoag saved the Pilgrims from starvation, and lived to regret it. Spurred on by their celebrated linguist Jessie Little Doe Baird, the Wampanoag of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard are reviving their language more than a century after the last native speaker died.
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In a family of ambitious artists, Francesca Woodman burned the brightest, and burnt out the fastest. The celebrated photographer committed suicide at age 22, leaving her family with a complicated mix of pride in her legacy, guilt about her death, and anger over the shortness of her life.
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The National Film Registry is an eclectic collection of films that typify cinema's contributions to American culture. The 550 films inducted thus far constitute a roll call of national cultural and artistic treasures that reflect a nation's self-perception, fears, and ambitions.
the National Endowment for the Arts