Update! See What Has Become of the Nomad Family Portrayed in Summer Pasture

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Brooke Shelby Biggs

Locho, Yama, and Pale Chubby Baby … where are they now? Lynn True, co-director of Summer Pasture, provided us with these fantastic video updates from the Tibetan plateau in which we discover what has happened to the nomad family in the years between the film’s completion and its broadcast last week on Independent Lens.

Catching Up with the Summer Pasture Family
In this update with the subjects of the Independent Lens documentary Summer Pasture, we catch up with Locho and Yama and their two daughters to see how their lives have changed since they were first filmed. Now they have certain modern amenities, like a cell phone and a television, on which they view the documentary about themselves. Afterwards, they share their thoughts about the film.

Continue reading →

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Nomads’ Land: Interactive Map

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Rebecca Huval

A Himba child in Namibia (photo by Rita Willaert/Flickr)

Our ancestors were nomads, but today, out of 6.8 billion people, only 30 million lead migratory lives. Summer Pasture (tonight on Independent Lens at 10 PM  — check local listings ) spotlights a nomadic family in the grasslands of Dzachukha in eastern Tibet. Locho, his wife Yama, and their infant daughter depend on yaks for their survival, but Dzachukha is becoming more settled, threatening their way of life.

Many nomadic societies around the world are facing threats to their way of life by forced resettlement, climate change, political unrest, armed conflict, and assimilation into modern urban cities.

Here’s a sampling of nomadic people throughout the globe who maintain the peripatetic lifestyle despite its challenges.


View Nomadic People Worldwide in a larger map

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This Just In: Next Season, We’re Moving to Monday Nights on PBS!

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Brooke Shelby Biggs

by Lois Vossen, Independent Lens Senior Series Producer & Vice President, ITVS

We are pleased to report that PBS, ITVS, and POV have emerged from months of conversation to confirm a new Monday nights at 10 PM broadcast slot for Independent Lens and POV.  The new timeslot reaffirms that independent filmmakers and public broadcasting together steward an essential mission: to present diverse, independent voices that are essential to our democracy.

At Independent Lens, we will do significant work with stations across the country to regain carriage and draw new and former viewers to the new Monday night slot. We are committed to doing that work — and counting on you to help us.

 

 

 

 

 

Although the power of a single television broadcast is shifting in the rapidly changing media landscape, it is still an essential element in the shared commitment of independent filmmakers and public media. Our programs go beyond sound bites to contextualize what is happening in our lives and in the world around us. They help audiences engage with and understand the most important issues of our time.

In the coming weeks we will announce our 2012-13 season of Independent Lens.  We are committed to working with our partners inside and outside public television to make sure we reach as large and diverse an audience as possible. So starting in October, look for Independent Lens on Monday nights at 10 PM.  You bring the popcorn and we’ll bring you 22 extraordinary, vital, and critically acclaimed films!

Read the story in the New York Times.

Read the Story in indieWIRE.

Read the story on Current.

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Finding a Familiar Humanity Half a World Away

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Brooke Shelby Biggs

Nelson Walker with baby Jiatomah

The filmmaking juggernaut of Lynn True, Nelson Walker, and Tsering Perlo dropped by the Independent Lens offices in between trips to Tibet to visit with Locho and Yama, the couple at the heart of their documentary Summer Pasture, which premieres on  May 10 at 10pm (check local listings). We asked them about making such an intimate film about a culture few Westerners know exists. (We also discovered the astonishing yak photo gallery they have on their site … seriously, go look at some pretty yaks.)

Yama and Locho guide the filmmakers on horseback

What impact do you hope this film will have?
We were lucky to have such intimate access to the nomad community in Dzachukha, and wanted to make a film that would open a window onto this way of life. Most of all, we hope audiences will feel a sense of personal connection with Locho and Yama, and gain an intimate understanding of the challenges they are facing. Ideally, we’d like Locho and Yama’s experiences to be a starting point for dialogue about the larger issues confronting Tibetan communities.

Continue reading →

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Video Extras and Updates About the Ponces of Circo

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Brooke Shelby Biggs

The Ponce family.

If you’ve seen Circo, you might be wondering whatever happened to Tino and his wife, Ivonne after she left, and of course the children, the extended family, and the circus itself. We certainly wanted to know what had happened to them. Fortunately, director Aaron Schock provided us with a couple of extra video shorts to catch you up and let you peek behind the scenes.

The Ponces today:

Here’s Aaron talking about how he met the Ponces and ended up spending a year documenting them:

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8 Small Circuses that Rival the Biggest Big Tops

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Rebecca Huval

Circo Raluy in Barcelona. Image by dhammza on Flickr.

The circus has existed in some form since before the birth of Caesar. This week, Independent Lens will focus on a modern day Big Top — Circo (airing May 3 – check local listings) follows a small family circus in Mexico’s struggling economy. The Ponces train their children as contortionists, death-defying motorcyclists, and lion handlers, but the vagabonding kids don’t have time to learn spelling in school. “The circus is tough and beautiful,” says Tino Ponce, the family patriarch. “It’s both.”

Small circuses around the world struggle through economic hardships, controversies over animal abuse, and the difficulty of passing on their legacy to their children. Here’s a sampling of eight: Continue reading →

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Deep Inside Mexico, Filmmaker Finds Remnants of a Rich but Endangered Culture

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Brooke Shelby Biggs

Ringmaster Tino Ponce with Circo director Aaron Schock

Aaron Schock wanted to make a documentary about Mexico that wasn’t about immigration, for a change. While scouting for subjects in the rural communities off the beaten path, he happened upon a traveling circus, and the rest is, well, Circo. The intimate, pastoral, and lyrical film tells the story of a circus family desperately trying to carry on a centuries-old tradition against difficult odds. Circo premieres Thursday, May 3, 2012 on Independent Lens (check local listings).

What led you to make Circo?
The inspiration for Circo was a desire to reverse the direction of the documentary lens that has typically looked at Mexico only from the border up and singularly through the subject of immigration. Instead, I wanted to go deep into the Mexican countryside and find a story that could communicate both the richness and the complexities of a vast culture and social order unfamiliar to most Americans.

My original plan was to make a film about corn farmers. But one night while I was in a small village doing field research, a traveling circus came to town. That night I went to the circus. The plan changed.

What impact do you hope this film will have?
I want the audience to walk away with a heightened awareness of the difficult choices faced by rural Mexicans, for whom a way of life that has sustained them for generations in increasingly unviable, and alternatives are few. Continue reading →

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The Return: Genetically Pure Bison Reintroduced to Montana

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Brooke Shelby Biggs

After shooting wrapped on Facing the Storm: Story of the American Bison, filmmaker Doug Hawes-Davis captured the story of the historic transfer of wild, genetically-pure bison from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Peck tribes of northeastern Montana.

Here’s his 16-minute short film of this inspiring tale:

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Capturing the Last Vestiges of an Iconic American Symbol

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Brooke Shelby Biggs

Montana filmmaker Doug Hawes-Davis lives in a place where at one time, bison outnumbered people by more than two to one. Now the embattled animal — a common symbol of the American West — is clinging to its last vestiges of wildness, as cattle ranching, hunting, and habitat loss threaten once again to bring it to the brink of extinction. Hawes-Davis’s film Facing the Storm: Story of the American Bison premieres on Independent Lens on Thursday, April 26, 2012 (check local listings).

What impact do you hope your film will have?
The film deals with a part of American history that is not well known. I’d like that history to become more common knowledge. Understanding our past and current relationship with bison – the most iconic of all native North American wildlife – I hope will help us improve that relationship in the future.

What led you to make Facing the Storm?
Bison are the most iconic of all native North American wildlife. In many ways, the image of bison represents the wild and the American wilderness. Yet, they are the only animal that is not allowed to be wild essentially anywhere in our country. That root of that irony is of great interest to me. Continue reading →

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Facing the Storm: A Buffalo (News) Roundup!

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Rebecca Huval

To celebrate Earth Day, we ask, “Where do the buffalo roam?” Facing the Storm: Story of the American Bison (airing April 26, check local listings) follows the American West’s relationship with the largest land mammal on the continent. In the early 19th century, 30 million buffalo inhabited the Great Plains, and the Native Americans revered them. But by 1890, bison had been completely eliminated from the plains. Although they have slowly been reintroduced to areas such as Yellowstone National Park, buffalo still don’t ramble wild in the West.

So where do the buffalo roam in 2012? And how have humans affected these iconic American creatures over the past 20 years?

  • As shown in Facing the Storm, geographers Frank and Deborah Popper published a controversial paper in 1987 that argued for a 139,000-square-mile nature reserve called Buffalo Commons. “The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust” predicted that the Great Plains would continue its human depopulation. Instead of letting that land go to waste, the Poppers argued, the wild buffalo population should be revitalized. At the time, the paper garnered heated reactions from the six affected states. Bodyguards ensured the Poppers’ safety at lectures, and the professors canceled a Montana event because of death threats. Continue reading →
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