Blog

Independent Lens logo
May, 19, 2026

Ritual Season 2

Jasmine Lee

Narrated by Tarriona “Tank” Ball, Ritual Season 2 moves through the streets, kitchens, bodies, and ancestral spaces of the American South, revealing how everyday practices carry deeper meaning. From New Orleans second lines to Sunday meals, from hair preparation to…
Independent Lens logo
March, 10, 2026

True North: Canadian Myths and Black Power

aldomorablanco

Through rare archival footage and firsthand accounts, True North revisits 1968 Montreal, where Black liberation movements converged at the Congress of Black Writers. As student protests ignited the Sir George Williams Affair, Black youth faced violent repression, unfolding a powerful…
Independent Lens logo
October, 14, 2025

Flood

aldomorablanco

Returning home to California’s Inland Empire, filmmaker Katy Scoggin seeks to reconnect with her estranged father, who works as an elementary science teacher. He is the only evangelical left in the family, and as they face their differences on faith,…
Woman with dark brown skintone in profile with sunflower in hair looking into distance with flowers behind her
July, 15, 2025

Ratified

Independent Lens

Ratified brings the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to life through Virginia’s pivotal ratification battle. Led by Black women and with the support of a multi-racial, multi-generational coalition, this documentary traces the legal, political, and deeply personal fight to enshrine gender…
Phil Sharp using a pipet in a lab in black and white - the liquid in the pipet bright blue and focal point of image
July, 10, 2025

Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution

Independent Lens

A groundbreaking look at Phil Sharp’s rise from being a rural Kentucky farm boy who battled dyslexia to Nobel Prize-winning scientist. Narrated by Mark Ruffalo with insights from Walter Isaacson, Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution reveals…
Illustration of a white man in colonial garb towering over miniature couples and families.
September, 30, 2024

The History of White People in America

Independent Lens

A series of musical animations, chronicling diverse experiences of how race has helped shape American culture. These shorts provide insight into the unique lived experiences of historical figures who played a role in the evolving definitions of identity.
Photograph of a man's back. He is sitting on the bottom bunk in a dark prison cell. Near him is a microwave, a few cups strewn about, and a crumpled up piece of paper.
July, 3, 2024

The Strike

Independent Lens

The high-security Pelican Bay prison was designed for mass-scale solitary confinement, often for a decade or more, and with little due process. In 2013, 30,000 incarcerated people went on a hunger strike that spread into a feat of unity across…
The back of a man who is standing in front of a yellow wall holding paint roller
July, 3, 2024

Who is Michael Jang?

Independent Lens

After a long career as a commercial and portrait photographer, mischievous San Francisco artist Michael Jang sat for decades on a hidden treasure of pictures taken in his 20s—both candid celebrity shots and a down-to-earth cross-section of Chinese American family…
Illustration of six hands each taking a slice of a round "I Voted" sticker.
June, 26, 2024

One Person, One Vote?

Independent Lens

At a time when many Americans question democratic institutions, One Person, One Vote? unveils the complexities of the Electoral College, the uniquely American and often misunderstood mechanism for electing a president. The documentary follows four presidential electors representing different parties…
A woman with light skin tone and dark hair in a NASA tee shirt sits in a isokinetic testing chair in a laboratory.
Beyond the Films
May, 13, 2024

The Mars Mission Tightrope: My Experiences as an Analog Astronaut 

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Heather Archuletta Like most Gen-X children born in the Apollo years, I grew up convinced the Moon was conquered, lunar colonies would become common, and a Mars landing would surely be achieved by the turn of the millennia. When…
A German astronaut aboard a space station looks at the camera while holding CIMON, a robotic companion with a digital smiley face on its monitor.
Beyond the Films
May, 6, 2024

How Science Fiction Confronts the Real Isolation of Space

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Anthony Ha [Note: Some movie spoilers within.] If decades of science fiction have taught me one thing about being an astronaut, it’s that you have to watch out for existential terror and loneliness. Movies like Sunshine and Interstellar are…
A woman with light skin tone, brown hair, and a leather jacket photographs a human skull in a forensic lab. Various photographs of human skulls and skeletons hang on the wall behind her.
Beyond the Films
October, 9, 2023

Forensic Anthropology Tools of the Trade 

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Amy Whipple In 1992, forensic anthropologist Mercedes (Mimi) Doretti (pictured above, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the 1980s) traveled to El Salvador as part of a U.N.-sponsored team to investigate the 1981 El Mozote massacre. Almost 1,000 people had…