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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.
Social Justice
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He was a drug addict, a convicted felon, a hustler and a shock jock. Petey Greene gave voice to the unheard—speaking truth to power on his raw and uncensored TV and radio programs. His explosive language and brash style shocked the world as he battled both the system and his own demons on a journey to becoming a leading activist during some of the most tumultuous years in recent history.
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ASK NOT
by Johnny Symons
June 16, 2009
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As wars rage in the Middle East, the U.S. military is eager for more recruits—unless you happen to be openly gay. ASK NOT explores the tangled political battles that led to the infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and reveals the personal stories of gay Americans who serve in combat under a veil of secrecy.
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A home of your own: that’s the American dream. But what happens when the dreamers are immigrants, factory workers and Communists? Director Michal Goldman traces the history of "The Coops," a cooperative apartment complex built in the Bronx by Jewish garment workers. The film tracks the rise and fall of the community from the 1920s into the 1950s, bearing witness to lives lived across barriers of race, convention and sometimes even common sense.
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BANISHED
by Marco Williams
February 19, 2008
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From the 1860s to the 1920s, dozens of towns and counties across America violently expelled entire African American communities, forcing thousands of black families to flee their homes. A century later, these towns remain mostly white. BANISHED tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn shocking histories.
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In an Indiana Jones meets Mother Teresa adventure, three middle-aged men—former soldiers and modern-day knights—travel the world delivering life-saving humanitarian aid directly into the hands of civilians and doctors. Ed Artis, James Laws and Walt Ratterman inspire through deeds not words, in some of the most dangerous yet beautiful places on earth: the front lines of war.
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You see the world differently when you work underground. That made Butte, Montana different right from the start as immigrants came from around the world to work the mines. But what they blasted out of the 10,000 miles of tunnels was more than just copper. It was the rise of unions and multinational corporations, and the seeds of the current debate over the environment.
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Mixing animation with archival footage, Director Brett Morgen's CHICAGO 10 explores the buildup to and unraveling of the protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the ensuing 1969 Conspiracy Trial. CHICAGO 10 portrays the struggle of young Americans speaking out and taking a stand in the face of an oppressive and armed government.
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It’s a civil war that’s lasted 40 years. Passed down from son to son. Fought eye for an eye. Over 15,000 dead and counting, while the world stands by. Welcome to South Central Los Angeles. But what’s at the root of this long-standing battle? Filmmaker Stacy Peralta hits the streets of LA to find out, and speaks with former and current members of the Bloods and the Crips, two of the most notorious and violent street gangs in America.
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What if your most controversial act turned out to be the most traditional thing in the world? For the gay fathers who are changing the landscape of the American family, parenthood often means wrestling with not only dirty diapers but with surrogacy, interracial adoption, gay divorce and legal custody.
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Young girls whose lives were shattered by the child sex trade describe the day they were abducted from their villages as “the day my god died.” By weaving footage from the brothels of Bombay with these girls’ stories, Levine offers an unforgettable examination of the growing plague of child sex slavery.
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One of America’s first post 9/11 hate crime murders punctuated a growing wave of violence in retaliation for the terror attacks. Told from the perspective of the victim’s brother, A DREAM IN DOUBT travels to Mesa, Arizona to reveal a story of national tragedy, murder, community and the American dream.
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Prior to his death in a Baghdad bombing attack in 2003, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello devoted his life to global humanitarian efforts in countries such as Mozambique, Cambodia and East Timor. EN ROUTE TO BAGHDAD is a portrait of Vieira de Mello and his extraordinary career and a tragic metaphor for the effort to bring stability to Iraq.
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GIRL TROUBLE
by Lexi Leban and Lidia Szajko
Co-presentation with KQED/San Francisco
January 17, 2006
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Shot over four years, GIRL TROUBLE is the story of three girls entangled in San Francisco's juvenile justice system. Documenting the girls' remarkable successes and heartbreaking setbacks regarding poverty, parenthood, violence and homelessness, it exposes a system that fails to meet the need of girls in trouble.
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Will mothers tip the scales in the battle over gun control? GUNS & MOTHERS traces the activism of two women on opposite sides of the issue: Maria, a mother of four and spokeswoman for Second Amendment Sisters; and Frances, an advocate of gun control who lost three sons to urban bullets.
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HARD ROAD HOME follows two former felons in different stages of life "on the outside." Julio is a former drug dealer who has committed his life to the East Harlem program that helps break the cycle of incarceration. Alberto, who idolizes Julio, is a success story in the making but still struggles with his old demons on a daily basis.
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A gang member, a hustler and a small-time dealer—they served their sentences, and they’re on parole. Now they’re about to discover that walking out the prison gates is just the beginning. This intimate film sheds light on the profound experience of doing time, then trying to go straight.
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IRON LADIES OF LIBERIA
by Daniel Junge, Siatta Scott-Johnson, Henry Ansbacher and Jonathan Stack
March 18, 2008
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With unprecedented access, this intimate documentary goes behind the scenes with Africa's first freely elected female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia. The film explores the challenges facing the new president and the extraordinary women surrounding her as they develop and implement policy to rebuild their ravaged country and prevent a descent back into civil war.
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KNOCKING
by Joel P. Engardio and Tom Shepard
May 22, 2007
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They are moral conservatives who stay out of politics, but they won a record number of court cases expanding freedom for everyone. They refuse blood transfusions on religious grounds, but they embrace the science behind bloodless surgery. In Nazi Germany, they could fight for Hitler or go to the concentration camps. They chose the camps. Following two families who stand firm for their controversial and misunderstood Christian faith, KNOCKING reveals how Jehovah's Witnesses have helped shape history beyond the doorstep.
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Have you ever dreamed of being waited on hand and foot? For the past six
years, Lakshmi has been doing just that for her employers—virtually unnoticed. That is, until one of Lakshmi’s employers begins to film her daily life on the job in Mumbai, India. In a deeply personal portrait, the film takes a hard look at the Indian caste system, gender and class relations.
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MAGGIE GROWLS
by Barbara Attie & Janet Goldwater
February 4, 2003
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How did one "little old lady" use her charm, savvy and outrage to fuel a political chain reaction that forever changed society's treatment of older Americans? MAGGIE GROWLS combines moving interviews, archival footage and wildly imaginative animation to tell the story of Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers.
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Everyone has seen a nature documentary with a ferocious kill on the Serengeti Plain. Well, here’s a different story about villagers navigating the dangers and costs of living with wildlife. After a century of “white man’s conservation,” the Maasai of Kenya and Namibia’s Himba people are vying to share a piece of the eco-tourism pie. But can they fulfill the expectations of Westerners without abandoning their native culture?
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Nearly one in seven Afghan women die in childbirth. MOTHERLAND AFGHANISTAN introduces the women behind these devastating statistics. Afghan American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi examines her father's works as an OB/GYN as he struggles to make a difference, first at Kabul's recently renamed Laura Bush Maternity Ward and then in an isolated provincial hospital, where patients often travel for several days to get treatment.
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Credited with inspiring the Black Power Movement, Robert Williams led his North Carolina hometown to defend itself against the Ku Klux Klan and challenge repressive Jim Crow laws. NEGROES WITH GUNS follows Williams's journey from southern community leader to his exile in Cuba and China—a journey that brought the issue of armed self-defense to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.
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It’s time to cut our dependence on fossil fuel and pursue renewable energy. But how can it be done? Native American tribes turn to solar and wind sources to provide clean sustainable energy for cities across the West. Their traditional values toward conservation and the earth offer real solutions to America’s energy crisis.
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RACE TO EXECUTION traces the fates of two Death Row inmates—Robert Tarver in Alabama and Madison Hobley in Chicago. Through these compelling personal narratives and the often unexpected results of research on race, justice and the media, the film exposes the factors that influence who lives and who dies at the hands of the state. Co-production of ITVS and co-presentation with NBPC.
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RECYCLE
by Mahmoud al Massad
March 31, 2009
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Ride shotgun with ex-Mujahideen fighter Abu Amar and his son through the chaotic streets of Zarqa, Jordan—a hotbed of political extremism and birthplace of the infamous al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Follow Amar’s daily life as he scours the streets to earn a meager living collecting cardboard to recycle and struggles with his faith and the social realities of life in the Middle East.
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In 2000, an experimental court opened in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a neighborhood plagued by a cycle of unemployment, poverty and crime. Instead of jail time, offenders are sentenced to job training, drug counseling and community service. Follow the ups and downs of several defendants and staffers involved in this legal revolution that has become a model for courts nationwide.
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When a young, irreverent priest arrives at Saint Patrick Parish in Lawrence, Massachusetts, he discovers the unexpected—boiling ethnic tensions in a changing working-class community. Filmed over four years, follow the wildly diverse personal stories of Father Paul O’Brien and his unruly flock, as they struggle to hold onto faith in the face of desperate circumstances.
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After Joanna Katz was brutally tortured and gang-raped, she faced her assailants and transformed herself into a victim’s rights advocate. Called upon to testify at parole hearings year after year, this South Carolina woman decided to collaborate with a seasoned filmmaker to tell her own story, challenging the parole system in order to heal herself—and to give courage to other women who have survived violent crimes.
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SEOUL TRAIN
by Lisa Sleeth, Jim Butterworth and Aaron Lubarsky
December 13, 2005
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A growing and potentially explosive humanitarian crisis is threatening East Asian peace: the life and death of North Koreans as they try to escape their homeland and China. Exposing the complex geopolitics and bureaucracy entangling the lives of
thousands of North Korean refugees, SEOUL TRAIN is also the story of a
group of dedicated activists--putting themselves in harms way to rescue
refugees via an underground railroad.
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SHADYA
by Danny Hakim, Udi Kalinsky and Roy Westler
January 16, 2007
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Shadya Zoabi, a charismatic 17-year-old karate world champion, strives to succeed on her own terms within her traditional Muslim village in northern Israel. Despite her father's support, she faces the challenge of balancing her dreams with her religious commitments and other's expectations. SHADYA takes an intimate look at the evolution of a young Israeli Arab woman with feminist ideas in a male-dominated culture.
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SISTERS IN LAW looks at the work of one small courthouse in the African nation of Cameroon. With fierce compassion, the tough-minded state prosecutor Vera Ngassa and court president Beatrice Ntuba dispense wisdom, wisecracks and justice in fair measure.
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During the Nazi occupation of France, four young women - who were neither Jews nor Communists nor in any danger of arrest--chose to risk their lives as Resistance fighters. SISTERS IN RESISTANCE shares the story of four heroines whose intense friendship, sorrows and social activism lasted long after the war was won.
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SISTERS OF '77
by Cynthia Salzman Mondell and Allen Mondell
March 1, 2005
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On a historic weekend in November 1977, 20,000 women and men attended the first federally funded National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas, where they caucused, argued and finally hammered out resolutions that revolutionized the women’s movement. SISTERS OF ’77 weaves archival footage and interviews with past and current activists and participants.
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SUNSET STORY
by Laura Gabbert and Caroline Libresco
March 22, 2005
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Irja, age 81, and her best friend, Lucille, age 95, are the only lucid residents at a senior citizens’ home for political progressives. SUNSET STORY delves into their world, revealing how these women salvage support and community in old age.
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How does the simple act of planting trees lead to winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Ask Wangari Maathai of Kenya. In 1977, she suggested rural women plant trees to address problems stemming from a degraded environment. Under her leadership, their tree-planting grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, defend human rights and promote democracy, earning Maathai the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
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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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The historic town of Hudson, New York is confronting a modern Goliath: its own future. TWO SQUARE MILES tracks the conflicts unfolding as a proposed multinational coal-fired cement plant threatens to reshape the community. Hudson's colorful and passionate residents, artists and activists attempt to save the town's unique character and architectural heritage and breathe life back into the exercise of democracy.
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For over 40 years, Ralph Nader has worked tirelessly as a consumer advocate, building a legislative record to rival that of any contemporary president. Yet today, many consider him merely an egomaniac and a "spoiler." AN UNREASONABLE MAN takes an unsparing look at one of the most important and controversial political figures our time.
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Welcome to Versailles, New Orleans — home to the densest ethnic Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam. For more than 30 years, its residents lived a quiet existence on the edge of New Orleans. But then came Hurricane Katrina, the immense garbage piles and the shocking discovery of a toxic landfill planned in their neighborhood. Watch as they fight back, turning a devastating disaster into a catalyst for change and a chance to build a better future.
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WRIT WRITER reveals a little-known battle of the Civil Rights Movement, led by an indigent, under-educated prisoner. Texas-born, Mexican American Fred Cruz came of age and found his life's calling in prison, where the sanctioned cruelty and brutality among inmates and guards moved him to fight the state prison system in the court of law.
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the National Endowment for the Arts