October 20, 2020
How Three Passionate Candidates Represent Women Shaping the Future
Craig Phillips in Interviews
What does "representation" mean in the midst of a historically tense election year? In her film Represent, filmmaker Hillary Bachelder sought to show the universal struggle to redefine repressive expectations…...
September 25, 2020
Independent Lens Fall Season Has 2020 Vision
Independent Lens in Announcements
The upcoming slate of films airing on Independent Lens on PBS this fall is just one part of an incredible season coming up that will last through the Spring in…...
March 30, 2018
Censored Iranian Artists, Poets and Musicians Threatened with Exile
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
[Note: Please enjoy this guest essay on Iranian artists and censorships, in conjunction with the broadcast premiere of When God Sleeps, by artist and game creator Kurosh ValaNejad. See more…...
September 27, 2016
Evolution of TV Political Pundits: The Legacy of Buckley and Vidal
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
As depicted in Best of Enemies, bitter intellectual rivals Willam F. Buckley and Gore Vidal eviscerating each other with wit on network TV in 1968 made for riveting, and sometimes jaw-dropping, television. It…...
September 27, 2016
Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon Peel the Layers of Buckley and Vidal
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
It's not often you'll find a documentary filmmaking team who combined have won an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Grammy, but the multi-faceted duo of Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon have done…...
April 15, 2016
Zimbabwe Update: Still In Flux
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
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…...
April 14, 2016
Camilla Nielsson Gets Unprecedented Access to a Constitution in the Making
Craig Phillips in Interviews
[caption id="attachment_12917" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Filmmaker Camilla Nielsson at work shooting Democrats[/caption] Filmmaker Camilla Nielsson is based in Denmark but works all over the globe. Her previous films were set in Afghanistan, Mumbai, and Darfur. Then she turned her attention to…...
May 14, 2015
Nine Movies about American Radicals
Independent Lens in Lists
By Noel Murray There’s something deeply and inherently provocative in movies that tell stories about open rebellion against the United States government, because they force us to think harder about…...
November 08, 2012
Academy Award-Winner Alex Gibney’s Tale of Two Cities in One
Brooke Shelby Biggs in
We sat down with Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, director of Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream, to talk about what motivated him to make this film. The documentary is…...
October 03, 2012
The Making of the Unmaking of Janesville, WI
Brooke Shelby Biggs in Where Are They Now?
We sat down with As Goes Janesville filmmaker Brad Lichtenstein in the midst of a whirlwind media tour ahead of the premiere of his film on Independent Lens Monday, October…...