Blog

Shinnecock Tribal trustee Lance Gumps at the US Open
Interviews
November, 14, 2019

In Opulent Hamptons Filmmaker Asks, Whose Land Is it Anyway?

Independent Lens in Interviews

Treva Wurmfeld was named one Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film a few years back and made her mark first with her festival award-winning film Shepard and Dark about iconic American playwright Sam Shepard's lifelong friendship with reclusive writer…
An African American boy looks up at burned out buildings in the Bronx, circa late 70s
Beyond the Films
November, 4, 2019

How the Burning of the Bronx Led to the Birth of Hip-Hop

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, a geographer and writer who co-edited, with Rebecca Solnit, the remarkable, fascinating book Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas, helped us create a playlist to accompany both Decade of Fire and a key map in his book: "Burning Down…
Decade of Fire, kids skating in the Bronx 1970s
Behind the Films
October, 30, 2019

Decade of Fire Filmmakers Change the Narrative About the South Bronx

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

The three-headed team as it were, of co-directors Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and Gretchen Hildebran, and producer Julia Steele Allen, each brought something different and special to the table in the making of the film Decade of Fire, which tells the…
A solitary man with light skin tone stands on a beach on a cloudy day, leaning against a lifeguard stand.
October, 21, 2019

The Hottest August

Independent Lens

The Hottest August presents an up-close and personal look at New Yorkers’ growing concerns over a variety of societal changes, from rising rents to marching white nationalists, during one sweltering month in 2017. Raising the specter of our changing climate…
A still from archival news footage showing three men carrying a body bag into the back of an ambulance.
October, 21, 2019

Cooked: Survival by Zip Code

Independent Lens

In the summer of 1995, Chicago experienced an unthinkable disaster, when extremely high humidity and a layer of heat-retaining pollution drove the heat index up to more than 126 degrees. Cooked: Survival by Zip Code tells the story of this…
Panther Bobby Lee speaking
August, 15, 2019

The First Rainbow Coalition

Independent Lens

In 1969, the Chicago Black Panther Party, notably led by the charismatic Fred Hampton, began to form alliances across lines of race and ethnicity with other community-based movements in the city, including the Latinx group the Young Lords Organization and…
A group of people with dark skin tone help to clean up a large pile of rubble. The 2020 Audience Award logo is in the corner.
July, 24, 2019

Decade of Fire

Independent Lens

Decade of Fire covers a shocking but untold piece of American urban history, when the South Bronx was on fire in the 1970s.  Left unprotected by the city government, nearly a quarter-million people were displaced as their close-knit, multiethnic neighborhood…
Native Hawaiian prisoners perform a ritual ceremony using conch shells as instruments
Behind the Films
April, 30, 2019

Filmmaker Follows Incarcerated Native Hawaiians Discovering Their Indigenous Traditions

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

Native Hawaiian filmmaker Ciara Lacy has had her work aired on PBS, ABC, TLC, Discovery, Bravo and A&E, and was an inaugural Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellow for Indigenous Artists. A graduate of Yale and Hawai'i's Kamehameha Schools, Lacy's first documentary…
Simons and Parham in Oakland
Beyond the Films
April, 19, 2019

Stepping Up for Homeless Black People in Oakland

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Pendarvis Harshaw The Independent Lens documentary Charm City brings to mind the long list of urban American cities that fall into the same category as the Baltimore seen in that film: Detroit, Newark, Compton, and Oakland, to name a…
Alex Long of Charm City, in a Safe Streets shirt
Interviews
April, 17, 2019

Filmmaker Spotlights Unsung Neighbors Lifting Up Baltimore

Independent Lens in Interviews

Marilyn Ness is a two-time Emmy, Peabody, and DuPont Award-winning filmmaker, who has produced films like the acclaimed Cameraperson (dir. Kirsten Johnson), which was released by the Criterion Collection and shortlisted for an Oscar; Trapped (dir. Dawn Porter; Independent Lens), which…
doctor takes a patient's blood pressure; image courtesy Rawpixel.com
Beyond the Films
April, 4, 2019

New Efforts to Improve Rural Healthcare Crisis

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Suzanne Gordon The three caregivers we meet in The Providers face daunting challenges as they try to deliver medical and mental healthcare to patients in rural New Mexico. Sadly, their struggles are reproduced all over America because for decades…
Dr Leslie Hayes, smiling at work in her office, in The Providers
Beyond the Films
April, 1, 2019

A Day in the Life of a Rural Doctor, When No Day is the Same

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

Leslie Hayes knew she wanted to become a doctor from a very young age. She was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a community that hosts a national nuclear laboratory and that boasts the highest rate of PhDs per capita…