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Director Cullen Hoback (at right) takes secret charter up West Virginia river to collect water samples under the cover of night.
Interviews
April, 10, 2018

Filmmaker Cullen Hoback Digs Into Political Cover-Ups and Chemical Spills in Americans Water

Independent Lens in Interviews

Filmmaker Cullen Hoback's previous film Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013), a humorous but chilling documentary about the erosion of online privacy and what info governments and corporations are legally taking from citizens each day, has become (or remains) timely…
Watch Video
April, 4, 2018

Watch The Seven-Part Series “Sentencing Children”:

Independent Lens in Watch Video

Watch our seven-part, Webby Award-nominated series on juvenile sentencing laws, "Sentencing Children." "Sentencing Children" was produced by Dan Birman and Independent Lens. This series is part of Independent Lens‘s commitment to fostering collaboration between filmmakers and journalists. “Sentencing Children” was originally…
Shahin Najafi in a public performance, from When God Sleeps
Beyond the Films
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 on him at the end.] by Kurosh ValaNejad, guest contributor In…
Shahin Najafi resting before concert, in ultraviolet light
Interviews
March, 28, 2018

Filmmaker Till Schauder Had Many Sleepless Nights Telling Shahin Najafi’s Story

Independent Lens in Interviews

The German-born, New York-based filmmaker Till Schauder's previous film The Iran Job was about an American basketball player who went with great trepidation to play professionally in Iran, a winning film about sports, politics, and the people of that country.…
Dolores Huerta at a press conference, as seen in the movie Dolores
Independent Film
March, 7, 2018

From Jane to Dolores, Agnès to Elsa, Documentaries on Unheralded Women Who Made History

Sharon Knolle in Independent Film

In celebration of Women's History Month (every March), we focus on great recent documentaries about great women, all who forged their own path in times and places where that wasn't expected or encouraged, especially for a woman. As director Brett Morgen…
Interviews
February, 21, 2018

Filmmaker Theo Anthony’s Ratty Exploration of Urban Segregation

Independent Lens in Interviews

[pullquote]"It’s cool to watch younger audiences watch the film, because they just get the filmic language right away. It’s a film that feels more like an Instagram story than a traditional documentary."[/pullquote]In the New York Times critics' pick review of…
Winnie Mandela in a press conference, late 80s
Interviews
January, 29, 2018

“Winnie” Filmmaker Gives a New Perspective on Anti-Apartheid Activist Winnie Mandela

Independent Lens in Interviews

Filmmaker Pascale Lamche took on the enormous but important challenge of documenting Winnie Mandela's story, a narrative, as she discovered, that was slightly skewed in the mind of many across the world. As she said to Filmmaker Magazine, the perception…
The cast of Served Like a Girl, posing for the Ms Veteran America pageant
Announcements
January, 19, 2018

Independent Lens Announces Spring 2018 Slate of Award-Winning Films

Independent Lens in Announcements

Independent Lens, which recently won the 2017 IDA Documentary Award for Best Curated Series from the International Documentary Association, now officially announces our March-May 2018 lineup on PBS. Dolores, Peter Bratt’s highly-acclaimed film about activist Dolores Huerta premieres March 27;…
Bertha Lewis and ACORN, in ACORN and the Firestorm
January, 18, 2018

ACORN and the Firestorm

Independent Lens

For 40 years, the controversial community organizing group ACORN sought to empower marginalized communities. Its critics, though, believed ACORN exemplified everything wrong with liberal ideals, promoting government waste and ineffective activism. These competing perceptions exploded on the national stage in…
scene from No Man's Land, member of armed standoff in oregon riding horseback with American flag
January, 18, 2018

No Man’s Land

Independent Lens

With unfettered access, filmmaker David Byars gives a detailed, on-the-ground account of the 2016 standoff between protesters occupying Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and federal authorities during a 41-day siege. No Man’s Land documents the occupation from inception to demise…
A woman demonstrates the polluted tap water in her home in West Virginia after chemical spill, in What Lies Upstream
January, 18, 2018

What Lies Upstream

Independent Lens

In the unsettling exposé What Lies Upstream, investigative filmmaker Cullen Hoback travels to West Virginia to study the unprecedented loss of clean water for over 300,000 Americans in the 2014 Elk River chemical spill. There he uncovers a shocking failure…
Iranian musician Shahin Najafi performing, in When God Sleeps
January, 18, 2018

When God Sleeps

Independent Lens

Would you risk your life for what you believe in? When God Sleeps is a rap-punk-rock documentary about Iranian musician Shahin Najafi, who is forced into hiding after hardline clerics issue a fatwa for his death, incensed by a rap…