Blog

January, 26, 2026

Light of the Setting Sun

aldomorablanco

A Chinese family’s multigenerational trauma unfolds across time, place, and identity. Turning the camera inward, filmmaker Vicky Du traces her family’s mental illness back to the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949. Spanning Taipei, Taiwan, and New Jersey, Light of the…
Person walking across snowy road
November, 25, 2025

Keep Quiet and Forgive

aldomorablanco

Three decades after her assault, Lizzie confronts her Amish community’s silence around sexual abuse. She leads a movement to support fellow Amish and Mennonite survivors as they navigate trauma, faith, and family ties. With rare access, Keep Quiet and Forgive…
June, 26, 2024

The In Between

Independent Lens

Following her brother's death, a filmmaker returns to Eagle Pass, the Texas bordertown where she grew up, to document the places that shaped their family. She finds a treasure trove of his own footage that brings him back to life,…
A child with medium skin tone and dark hair, looking downcast, sits with his arms and head resting on a table full of food.
Behind the Films
September, 25, 2023

“Your Story Makes You Strong”: Sansón, an Incarcerated Man, Watches His Life as Documentary Reenactment

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

By Craig Phillips with Rodrigo Reyes and Sansón & Me team  The life story of a young man serving life in prison for murder, Sansón and Me is told through dramatic re-creations—featuring members of Sansón's own family as actors—out of…
Filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes, a Mexican-American man with medium-light skin tone and glasses sits next to a man with medium skin tone and dark features at a table in an auditorium, recreating a courtroom scene.
Behind the Films
September, 18, 2023

From Crimmigration Court Interpreter to Lifelong Friends

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

Mexican American filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes was and still is a court interpreter in rural California. It was in that capacity that he met then 19-year-old Mexican migrant Sansón Noé Andrade, who was sentenced to two life sentences without parole.  Reyes…
illustrated animated film still of young Matt from the film Brother
Behind the Films
August, 30, 2023

Feeding Our “Hungry Ghosts”: The Misunderstood Pain Behind Addiction

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

By Ivonne Spinoza Brother is an intimate portrayal of addiction that makes us question our preconceptions and helps shed light on what really goes on inside the mind of a person suffering through this process. I spoke with filmmaker Joanna…
Kimberley and daughter Kai stand in front of a church at sunset
Behind the Films
June, 20, 2023

Free Mom Hugs: How Mama Bears Spread Radical Love

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

By Alex Stergiou  [pullquote] "These women don't go from being conservative to allies because of other people. They go because they have skin in the game. They transform. Love is involved because their flesh and blood is involved—[queerness] is no…
Sam Harkness, age 11, screams as a freight train passes by, Color Super-8mm, 1998
Beyond the Films
May, 4, 2023

Home Movies and Heartbreak: Brothers Bond Over Decades of Filmmaking

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Brian Darr Sam Now is filled with the unexpected twists and turns of a family undergoing great upheaval, filmed over the course of a quarter-century by one of its members. Inspired by National Film Board of Canada filmmakers like…
A group of football players stand on the sidelines of a field during a game.
Behind the Films
February, 14, 2023

Beyond Football: Pahokee, Florida’s History of Black Resilience

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

This community and the surrounding area around the southern shores of Lake Okeechobee, Florida, has a rich history, but the people of Pahokee's past has often been skipped over, even by those who live there.  Ira McKinley, whose family hails…
A close up of a young woman with light skin tone and dark hair playing the violin.
Beyond the Films
January, 4, 2023

The Magic of Venezuelan Classical: From El Sistema and Beyond

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

At the center of the documentary Children of Las Brisas are the young musicians of El Sistema, the extraordinary, publicly financed, voluntary sector music-education program founded in Venezuela in 1975 by educator, musician, and activist José Antonio Abreu. Playing a…
Jared Leto wearing a black Day in the Life of America t-shirt
Contests
January, 3, 2023

WIN “A Day in the Life of America” T-Shirt

Independent Lens in Contests

We're giving away ten fabulous shirts to celebrate Jared Leto's A Day in the Life of America. Stream the documentary on the PBS app by January 11. The contest runs from Jan 3 through Jan 6, 2023 at 9:00 am.…
Two women with dark skin tone hold a mirror for a third woman with dark skin tone so she can observe herself. The three women are surrounded by trees.
October, 2, 2022

The Command Center to Bring Women Home

Independent Lens

Through a collaborative writing process with filmmakers, three women bring to life “The Command Center to Bring Women Home,” an imagined space run by formerly incarcerated women for those with nowhere else to turn but to each other, a place…