Blog

A woman's hand is handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Behind the Films
November, 18, 2020

Filmmaker Exposes Shocking Pattern of Illegal Sterilizations in Women’s Prisons

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

Erika Cohn has made powerful documentaries for Independent Lens before and is no stranger to telling intimate, surprising stories in tense environments: her Peabody Award-winning film The Judge showed Shari’a law in a new light to Western eyes, through the…
From animation of Pepe the Frog playing a video game with pal, from Matt Furie art
Behind the Films
October, 2, 2020

How a Cartoon Frog Became a Symbol for a “Confounding Moment in Our History”

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

Filmmakers Arthur Jones and Giorgio Angelini both bring very unique artistic backgrounds to the drawing table that led to the fruitful collaboration for Feels Good Man, which is Jones' feature film debut. Both are well-suited to tell the vivid tale…
A Chinese woman holds an infant in her arms while sitting in a gray armchair.
Beyond the Films
February, 5, 2020

The One-Child Policy Legacy on Women and Relationships in China

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Kristal Sotamayor The one-child policy was introduced to China in 1979, written into the national constitution in 1982, and subsequently ended in 2015. Over the 36 years of the policy, entire generations have been marked by the effects of…
A man with dark skin tone holds a phone to his ear. He looks anxious.
Behind the Films
January, 14, 2020

Filmmaker Accepts the Call to Tell Story of a Father and Son Divided

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

Filmmaker Eunice Lau, who is originally from Singapore (and boy does she have a story to tell you here about the experience of showing her film back home), was once a journalist at Al Jazeera Network. She has a penchant…
Subject Hale Gualderama and other native Hawaiian religion members engaging in cultural practice.
Beyond the Films
April, 26, 2019

Native Hawaiian Prisoners Learn Their Culture While Far From Home

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Christine Hitt The Independent Lens documentary Out of State follows Native Hawaiian exiting inmates, who were sent out of Hawai‘i to a private prison in Arizona, and how they struggle to transition into society again once their term is…
Beyond the Films
March, 25, 2019

How to Pronounce (and Not Pronounce) “Tre Maison Dasan”

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

One of the three "stars" of the documentary Tre Maison Dasan, Maison is a funny, charming, hyper-articulate 11-year-old whose Autism Spectrum Disorder presents itself through his ever-active mind and deep love for those around him. He also very much wants you to…
Beyond the Films
November, 12, 2018

Filmmakers Navigate the Secretive World of Social Media Censorship in Atmosphere of Fear

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

You know German filmmakers Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block are sharp-minded characters when you learn they work collaboratively under the label “Laokoon,” named after the legendary Trojan seer Laocoön who in Greek mythology revealed the Trojan Horse as a dangerous…
Beyond the Films
November, 8, 2018

Delete or Ignore? Pretend You’re a Facebook Content Moderator

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

In 2018, after much debate and controversy, Facebook finally published its censorship policies. All 27 pages of them. The move, wrote the LA Times, "adds a new degree of transparency to a process that users, the public and advocates have…
Dark room full of cubicles with one "cleaner" working late
August, 20, 2018

The Cleaners

Independent Lens

"Delete...Ignore...Delete… Ignore…" Someone is out there censoring your social media feed. Do their decisions distort your understanding of the world as much as clever hoaxes and "fake news"? They’re hired by Silicon Valley leaders like Facebook and Google to do…
Don't Tread on Me flag in foreground, watch tower in background, from No Man's Land
Beyond the Films
May, 3, 2018

Takeovers and Occupations: A Survey of American Mini-Rebellions and Political Stands

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

In the Independent Lens No Man's Land, we get a fly on the wall sense of the tense armed takeover and 41-day standoff at Oregon's Malheur Wildlife Refuge, led by rancher Ammon Bundy and his militia. Before it was all over,…
Interviews
May, 2, 2018

Documentarian Ventures into the “No Man’s Land” of Malheur Takeover

Independent Lens in Interviews

Documentarian David Garrett Byars is making his feature film debut with No Man’s Land, but he's made short films before. including Recapture, a short documentary chronicling the attempt of right-wing activists to reclaim the federally-managed Recapture Canyon in southern Utah. Clearly…
Interviews
April, 25, 2018

Director Finds Real Life Superheroes with “Conviction”

Independent Lens in Interviews

Filmmaker Jamie Meltzer, also the program director of the MFA program in Documentary Film at Stanford University, has made acclaimed films about a wide collection of topics, from song-poems to Nollywood (Nigerian) film to FBI informants, but each tells a…