Blog

December, 6, 2018

The Providers

Independent Lens

Does your zip code determine your life? The Providers gives a very human face to the physician shortage and opioid epidemic in rural America, following three healthcare professionals who are doing everything they can to make a difference in northern…
Judge Kholoud picking olives with her children.
Behind the Films
November, 14, 2018

Erika Cohn Unfolds a New Perception of Shari’a Law in Portrait of Remarkable Woman

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

Erika Cohn, who co-directed (with Tony Vainuku) the Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens doc In Football We Trust, went from the gridiron in Utah to the Shari'a courts of Palestine for her follow-up film The Judge, the story of the first-ever female judge…
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…
Mr. C from Charm City, sporting a Baltimore hat
October, 29, 2018

Charm City

Independent Lens

Charm City is an intimate portrait of a diverse group of neighbors, including police, citizens, community leaders, and government officials who, with grit and compassion, survive in and work to improve their vibrant neighborhoods during a violent three-year stretch in…
Behind the Films
October, 29, 2018

Filmmakers Seek the Truth in Eye-Opening Story of Forced Native Child Separation

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

Before there was Dawnland, there was First Light, a shorter version of the same story about the forced separation of Native American children that helped lead to the trust necessary to tell the expanded story of Dawnland. Those two films by Boston-based…
Beyond the Films
October, 24, 2018

The Toll: Wildland Firefighters Share Stories from the Job

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

Fallen firefighter Robert E. Caldwell, a Granite Mountain hotshot who perished in the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, said to a comrade, "I’d rather die in my boots than live in a suit." It would seem one would have to…
Filmmaker turned firefighter Alex Jablonksi, on the job for "Wildland"
Beyond the Films
October, 19, 2018

Filmmakers Turned Firefighters Venture Behind the Lines in “Wildland”

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

Filmmaker Alex Jablonski and his filmmaking partner Khalil Hudson had quite the arduous, smoke-filled journey to make the film Wildland. The documentary premieres on Independent Lens Monday, Oct. 29. Alex told us that Wildland started with a question: How do young men…
From Tre Maison Dasan: Maison and his dad tease each other during Saturday visiting hours at John J Moran Medium Security Prison in Cranston, RI.
October, 11, 2018

Tre Maison Dasan

Independent Lens

Told directly through the eyes of the children themselves, Tre Maison Dasan is a moving portrait of three unforgettable young boys struggling to grow up with a parent in prison. They face the pressure of growing up in a society…
a child gets a haircut with hair powder, shielding his eyes, in Hale County
October, 11, 2018

Hale County This Morning, This Evening

Independent Lens

RaMell Ross's Academy Award-nominated Hale County This Morning, This Evening, one of the year's most critically acclaimed films, is a dreamy and intimate journey through the world of Hale County, Alabama, a richly detailed glimpse into life in America’s Black…
north dakota woman in farm field, from My Country No More
October, 11, 2018

My Country No More

Independent Lens

They stood for their neighbors when they could have cashed in on their land. Will their choice cost them both? Between 2011 and 2016, oil drilling in rural North Dakota reached its peak, setting off a modern-day gold rush in…
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…
Judge Kholoud behind desk in The Judge
July, 10, 2018

The Judge

Independent Lens

Showing Shari’a law in a way we've never seen before--through the story of the first-ever female judge in Palestine’s religious courts--The Judge is portrait of a remarkable woman who overcame a male-dominated tradition to change minds. Middle East religious courts,…