We’re excited to unveil a multimedia project we developed with filmmaker Vanessa Gould for the new PBS Arts website. It is called Between the Folds: Eric Joisel 1956-2010, and it honors one of the biggest characters in Gould’s film Between the Folds, Eric Joisel. Joisel sadly passed away in October, and we are pleased to … READ MORE

We’re celebrating the new spring season by launching a new contest for our Independent Lens fans on Facebook! We’re calling it Watch to Win, and we want you to be ready for it before next Tuesday night Jan. 18, when we’re rebroadcasting the Peabody Award-winning film Between the Folds (check your local listings for the … READ MORE

Children of Haiti premieres on Independent Lens tonight at 10 PM (check local listings). As tomorrow’s one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake approaches, the media is alight with stories of rebuilding efforts, humanitarian missions, the still-desperate conditions inside the tent camps which sprung up around Port-au-Prince after the disaster left millions homeless. But what often … READ MORE

Children of Haiti premieres on Independent Lens on Tuesday, January 11 (check local listings) — a day before the one-year anniversary of the deadly Haiti earthquake. Although her film wrapped before the quake, filmmaker Alex Hammond has returned to Haiti several times since and joined us to talk about making the film, what has become … READ MORE

OK, so maybe we’re not super excellent at keeping secrets, but we’re excitable. Finally we can tell everyone about our whole spring schedule for Independent Lens! Check out some of the amazing new films we’ve got coming at you in 2011 (and a few viewer favorites coming back for encores). We’ve got films that have … READ MORE

Dylan Williams, the director and one of the Swim Gents in the film Men Who Swim (check local listings), joined us to discuss how directing and appearing in his own documentary sometimes meant that life imitated art, and vice versa. What made you start filming the Stockholm Arts Gents? As soon as I became a … READ MORE

UPDATE: If you remember The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill as fondly as we do, you’re probably curious about what has happened to the birds and to Mark Bittner in the three years since we first brought you this film. On December 29, 2010 we hosted a live chat with Mark and the film’s director, … READ MORE

All of us at Independent Lens wish you and yours a safe, warm, peaceful, and joyous holiday season, and a prosperous and intellectually stimulating 2011! See more Independent Lens.

What’s red and green and on your TV this holiday? Cherry-headed conures! Next week we get to bring back the old Independent Lens favorite The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill for the holiday season! The film will be broadcast on Independent Lens on Tuesday at 10 PM on PBS (check local listings). Then as an … READ MORE

Johnny Symons, director of the films Ask Not (Independent Lens, 2009) and Daddy & Papa (Independent Lens, 2002), was invited to attend the ceremony for President Obama’s signing of the repeal of the Pentagon’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, which forced gay military personnel to serve in secrecy or be discharged. Emotional as he left … READ MORE

Kenneth Turan, the Los Angeles Times film critic, devoted his year-end column to documentary films, which he says enjoyed “remarkable resurgence” in 2010: “It’s also hardly a secret that the major studios have, with periodic exceptions, all but given up on making films with the adult audience specifically in mind. So where are moviegoers going … READ MORE