Blog

Young Chinese girl in a blue jeans factory.
April, 3, 2007

China Blue

Independent Lens

They live crowded together in cement factory dormitories where water has to be carried upstairs in buckets. Their meals and rent are deducted from their wages, which amount to less than a dollar a day. Most of the jeans they…
A man sits in a jail cell
March, 27, 2007

Race to Execution

Independent Lens

Race discrimination infects America’s capital punishment system. According to a landmark study regarding race and the death penalty, a black defendant who kills a white victim is up to 30 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a…
January, 23, 2007

Beyond the Call

Independent Lens

In a Mother-Teresa-meets-Indiana-Jones adventure, three middle-aged modern-day knights travel the world delivering life-saving humanitarian aid directly to civilians and doctors at the front lines of war. Their work takes them to some of the most dangerous yet beautiful places on…
June, 6, 2006

The Great Pink Scare

Independent Lens

On Labor Day weekend in 1960, Massachusetts state police troopers swept through the small, idyllic town of Northampton and hauled 15 men off to jail. Three of them were professors at Northampton’s elite Smith College. The Great Pink Scare tells…
John Trudell
April, 11, 2006

Trudell

Independent Lens

Trudell follows the extraordinary life of Native American poet and activist John Trudell, from his impoverished childhood in Omaha to his leadership in the American Indian Movement (AIM), and his reincarnation as an acclaimed musician and spoken word poet. The…
Three white New York State police wearing riot gear and holding nightsticks struggle to subdue a shirtless black man
February, 14, 2006

July ’64

Independent Lens

When Hurricane Katrina ripped the roof off of New Orleans, the world was riveted by images of the city's primarily black and poor residents left to fend for themselves. Shocked by suddenly visible abject poverty and subhuman conditions, voices cried…
February, 7, 2006

Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power

Independent Lens

Negroes with Guns follows Robert Williams’s journey from North Carolina community leader to exile in Cuba and China, a journey that brought the issue of armed self-defense to the forefront of the Black Power and civil rights movements.
December, 13, 2005

Seoul Train

Independent Lens

In the documentary Seoul Train, filmmakers Jim Butterworth, and Lisa Sleeth expose the life-and-death struggle faced by North Koreans who attempt to flee their homeland through China, a country that does not recognize their legal status as refugees. In China,…
May, 24, 2005

Red Hook Justice

Independent Lens

Red Hook Justice follows the ups and downs of several defendants and staffers involved in an experimental court in the crime-ridden neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn — part of a legal revolution that has become a model for courts nationwide.
Imelda Marcos
May, 10, 2005

Imelda

Independent Lens

Few modern political figures have been as controversial, outspoken and perhaps misunderstood as Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines and the subject of award-winning filmmaker Ramona Diaz's Imelda. For the first time, Marcos tells her own story…
May, 3, 2005

The Last Letter

Independent Lens

The Last Letter is legendary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman’s poignant portrayal of a Russian Jewish woman living in a Ukrainian city seized by the Germans who writes her son one last letter as she remembers her life and faces her death.
A man preaches on a street corner in front of a large cross on a window, holding a bullhorn and a Bible
March, 9, 2005

Let the Church Say Amen

Independent Lens

Easter in Washington, D.C.: The White House holds its annual Easter Egg Roll on its great lawn. But less than a mile away is the city’s Shaw neighborhood—one of the country’s most impoverished communities—where residents celebrate a more spiritual commemoration…