Long a successful film producer, Lysa Heslov, along with her husband, Oscar-winning producer/writer/director Grant Heslov, founded Children Mending Hearts ten years ago, a non-profit dedicated to empowering disadvantaged youth in the U.S. through educational and humanities programs that build empathy and global citizenry. She’s produced cult indie films like Attention Shoppers, Bug, and Hank Azaria’s …
After you see the film Real Boy [premiering on PBS June 19 at 10pm; check local listings], you may be interested to hear from the main players involved. We recently checked in with not only Bennett, but his mom Suzy, plus Joe and Dylan, to find out what they’ve been up to since the filming …
Check out this gallery of updates from the past year on all the main players featured in Forever Pure, from former owner Arcadi Gaydamak to players Zaur Sadayev, Dzhabrail Kadiyev, and Ariel Harush, to coach Eli Cohen, and the La Familia fan group. Click on any image for a slideshow:
We thought viewers of Ben Lear’s They Call Us Monsters may be interested in hearing from the young men featured in the film. Yes, they have a lot of free time on their hands, but that didn’t guarantee they’d be comfortable writing back to us, to answer questions about their experience making the film and …
In this piece created for Independent Lens by filmmaker Mat Hames, we get to know more about Eastern Shoshone tribal elder Philbert McLeod, one of the stars of Hames’ Independent Lens documentary What Was Ours. Philbert had an incredible breadth of knowledge about his tribe’s history, and fought for America in Vietnam, for which he …
The many global fans of our film Twin Sisters are constantly asking us for any kind of update on the twin girls featured in Mona Friis Bertheussen’s popular documentary. After getting a detailed report from one of the moms awhile back, we recently checked in with the Norway-based filmmaker to see how Mia and Alexandra are …
For those of you who remember the dear story told in the Independent Lens film Limited Partnership, longtime partners Tony Sullivan and Richard Adams became one of the first same sex couples to be legally married in the world, in 1975 in Boulder, Colorado, only to have Tony, who is originally from Australia, denied citizenship when the federal …
The film Democrats, which aired on Independent Lens, traces the challenges and tensions that arose in Zimbabwe over the attempt to charter a new national constitution. While that African nation had a constitution before, this new document was to usher the country into a new, more democratic era. After many years under the rule of President …
Those who saw the Independent Lens film In Football We Trust will remember one of the four student-athletes featured in the film, “Fihi” Kaufusi, who was trying to fight through a rough upbringing to make it as a football player. We wanted to update you on a awful, dramatic, tragic turn to Fihi’s story, as the former Weber State …
UPDATE (2/7/17): News courtesy of East of Salinas filmmaker Laura Pacheco, teacher Oscar Ramos was just awarded the Cesar Chavez Human Rights Award! Our hearty congrats to Mr. Ramos on the well-deserved honor. #Cesar Chavez Human Rights Award Winner! Props to Oscar Ramos for his inspiration and commitment. pic.twitter.com/nvPsYopxjX — EAST OF SALINAS (@EastofSalinas) February 8, 2017 …
Since Blood Brother aired on Independent Lens in early 2014, many of the film’s fans continue to ask how Rocky Braat and the kids he works with in India are doing. We posted one update on Rocky awhile back. But from the filmmakers comes this special video update, in time for World AIDS Day (December 1st). From …
Stray Dog filmmaker Debra Granik, on our behalf, checked back in with the subjects of her film, Ron “Stray Dog” Hall, and his Mexican-born stepsons, Angel and Jesús, to see how they were faring these days. Ron wanted to focus specifically on veterans. To follow up on a question I asked Granik about how veterans respond to the film, …
