Blog

Demonstrators gathered in Albany, New York, in 1971 to demand gay rights and to declare that "Homo Is Healthy."
Behind the Films
September, 16, 2021

Telling the Story of When LGBTQ+ Activists Fought the Establishment and Won

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

The Los Angeles-based Bennett Singer and the D.C.-based Patrick Sammon have been making widely acclaimed historical documentaries for many years. Sammon was creator and Executive Producer of Codebreaker, a “superb” (The Telegraph) drama-documentary vividly exploring the life of gay British…
July, 16, 2021

Storm Lake

Independent Lens

Does American democracy survive without the backbone of independent local journalism? Go inside The Storm Lake Times, a family-run newspaper serving an Iowa town that has seen its share of changes in the 40 years since Big Agriculture came to…
Two Indigenous American teens laugh together outside near a parking lot.
July, 2, 2021

Scenes From the Glittering World

Independent Lens

Three Indigenous students experience the highs and lows of adolescence while attending one of the most remote high schools in the United States. Living in the uniquely beautiful but isolated Diné community within the Navajo Nation reservation, they navigate life…
Tran To Nga sits with victims of Agent Orange at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Behind the Films
June, 11, 2021

Filmmakers Show How Agent Orange Catastrophe Did Not End with the Vietnam War

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

The well-oiled, three-person machine behind The People vs. Agent Orange each brought their manifold backgrounds to the table in order to put together a film that involved equal parts investigative journalism, humanistic portrait of victims and fighters, and suspense thriller/detective…
A smiling Cambodian-American man in a suit offers a pink box of donuts through a drive-thru window.
Behind the Films
May, 21, 2021

From Cambodia to Southern California: Telling the Story of a King of Donut Shops

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

A Los Angeles native, Alice Gu began her career as a Director of Photography, working with renowned directors Werner Herzog (on his fascinating Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World) and Stacy Peralta. Take Every Wave: The Life of…
A smiling Cambodian American donut clerk offers up a box full of donuts in Southern California
Test Your Knowledge
May, 19, 2021

How Much of a Donut Nut Are You?

Independent Lens in Test Your Knowledge

Do or donut, there is no try! Do you know your donut from a spudnut? While you watch The Donut King on PBS, test yourself on all things donut-related with this quiz that will make you hungry and may even…
A smiling Cambodian-American man in a suit offers a pink box of donuts through a drive-thru window.
November, 25, 2020

The Donut King

Independent Lens

Co-Presented by Center For Asian American Media (CAAM). An immigrant story with a (glazed) twist, The Donut King follows the journey of Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, who arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a mixture of diligence and…
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…
Jonathan Scott at a solar company in Nevada, with solar panel
Behind the Films
November, 6, 2020

Jonathan Scott Investigates Who Controls Our Power

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

In some ways Jonathan Scott should need no introduction—or so you'd think as co-host with his brother Drew of the hugely popular HGTV shows Property Brothers and Brother vs. Brother, which air in more than 160 countries, and as a…
Fenell Doremus with kid on laptop and husband and dog in background
Interviews
October, 29, 2020

Parenting and Making Docs During a Pandemic? It’s a Juggling Act

Independent Lens in Interviews

By Ivonne Spinoza "Producing films often translates to putting out fires before they start, so I suppose this gets you ready for parenting in a pandemic, generally speaking, but did I feel prepared for the reality of 2020? That’s a…
Jonathan Scott sits on a Spanish tiled roof that's covered in solar panels.
August, 31, 2020

Jonathan Scott’s Power Trip

Independent Lens

Property Brothers co-host and home-renovation expert Jonathan Scott journeys all across the U.S. to uncover why clean, renewable energy isn’t available to all. While traveling to learn both the obstacles and opportunities for achieving energy freedom, Jonathan talks with conservatives…
Beyond the Films
August, 27, 2020

The Science of Kindness: It’s Not Easy Being Nice

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

Author Josh Kurz is a science communicator and filmmaker, and the co-creator of the audio program Shabam, which uses a zombie apocalypse to talk about real science. By Josh Kurz You might know someone like "Scott." Fun at parties, has…