Blog

Headshot of Producer/Director Alison O'Daniel, a woman with light skin tone and chest-length brown hair. She wears clear-framed, round glasses and a bright orange shirt against a blue background.
Behind the Films
May, 20, 2024

“To Film with Your Ears”: Reinventing Cinematic Language with The Tuba Thieves

By Rachel Kolb Alison O’Daniel is a visual artist and filmmaker who works with sound, moving images, sculpture, and large-scale installations. She is the director of The Tuba Thieves, an experimental film that considers how listening can become a form…
German astronaut Alex Gerst looks out of the window of a space station.
Behind the Films
April, 29, 2024

What Extreme Outer Space Isolation Can Teach Humans

Filmmaker Ido Mizrahy was fascinated by space travel isolation from a young age, inspired and awed by science fiction films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, and the original Solaris. And he eventually turned that fascination into the documentary Space:…
Two female doctors, both with light skin tone, pose outside of their mobile health wagon.
Behind the Films
March, 17, 2024

When the American Dream Becomes Survival: Short Doc Chronicles Rural Healthcare Crisis

By Nathan Duke Director Ramin Bahrani’s acclaimed films (like Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, and 99 Homes) focus on people struggling to survive due to economic challenges or failing to achieve the mythologized American Dream. His latest, the short documentary…
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

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…
Short Film “Folk Frontera” Shows the Culture of Life on the Border
Behind the Films
September, 15, 2023

Short Film “Folk Frontera” Shows the Culture of Life on the Border

By Ivonne Spinoza Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn’s Folk Frontera is a border-set tale, expertly portraying the beauty and heartbreak that comes with living on the U.S.-Mexico border. Connecting two strangers through their love of music, this short film highlights…
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

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

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

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…
Chol Soo Lee, in San Quentin prison
Behind the Films
April, 18, 2023

What Happened to Chol Soo Lee?

By Bedatri D. Choudhury Chol Soo Lee was a Korean American immigrant wrongfully convicted in 1974 of murdering a Chinatown gang leader in San Francisco. After a decade of being incarcerated, serving four of those ten years on death row,…
An injection site in Vancouver with orange colored partitions separating different areas. A sign reads "Injection site open all night." A man with a ponytail and long beard stands in the middle of the site looking off camera to the right.
Behind the Films
February, 23, 2023

How Vancouver Finds Hope and Love Amid Fentanyl Crisis

  By Ivonne Spinoza One of the more horrible legacies we are left with from the war on drugs is the lack of compassion toward those who struggle with addiction. Instead of treating this crisis as a health issue, society…
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

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 woman using a wheelchair dances with her arms as she sits near the seaside.
Behind the Films
November, 7, 2022

“I Want to Move, I Want to Embrace Change”: Kelsey Peterson’s Journey to Dance Again

By Xian Horn Kelsey Peterson and I have had very different experiences of disability—I was born with cerebral palsy, and she became disabled as an adult. But watching her film Move Me, I felt deeply connected to her. The camera…
A woman with dark skin tone, wearing a black dress and pearl necklace, sits on a white couch surrounded by photos of her son who has passed due to hazing.
Behind the Films
September, 15, 2022

The Price of Hazing: A Personal Journey to Understand the Need to Belong

Byron Hurt has made indelible films about the traditions of African American culinary traditions (Soul Food Junkies) and masculinity and misogyny in rap music with his daring doc Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes. For his new film, he tackles a…
A young Indigenous American girl plays with another's hair while a third looks on outside on the Navajo Nation Reservation.
Beyond the Films
May, 9, 2022

At Remote High School, Indigenous Teens Dream of a Glittering Future

South African-born, Utah-based documentarian Jared Jakins, currently the film curator at Granary Arts Center in Ephraim, Utah, is interested in stories of cultural intersection, and documenting communities and identities emerging from that intersection. Scenes from the Glittering World, his feature…
Four Indian women reporters chat together while working on a project.
Interviews
March, 15, 2022

Oscar-Nominated “Writing With Fire” Goes Inside India’s Only All-Women Newspaper

Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, co-directors, made a long journey metaphorically and literally with their film Writing With Fire, from northern India's Uttar Pradesh state, where they worked on the film for four years, to winning awards at Sundance in…
A woman with dark skin tone, wearing a purple shirt, hugs her grinning daughter, a young girl with dark skin tone and long braids.
Beyond the Films
February, 11, 2022

How Incarceration Affects Mothers and Their Children

Jennifer Redfearn, an Oscar-nominated director and producer (Sun Come Up) and current director of the documentary program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, made the documentary Apart—with producer/cinematographer Tim Metzger—with the hope that "the film encourages audiences to grapple…
A husband and wife tape a missing persons poster to a telephone pole.
Interviews
January, 10, 2022

Confronting the Agonizing Facts of Life and Death in Brooks County

Missing in Brooks County is an eye-opening investigation set in an unforgiving region of South Texas, where migrants go missing more than anywhere else in the United States. The documentary features activist detective Eddie Canales of the South Texas Human…
A young man with dark skin tone sits on the stairs of a brick house.
Behind the Films
January, 7, 2022

Owning Up to the Dark History of America’s Housing Industry

Before stepping into film, Giorgio Angelini had quite the diverse path: After touring in indie rock bands for most of his 20s, he enrolled in the Master of Architecture program at Rice University in Houston, which happened to be right…
A man with medium-dark skin tone hugs a young woman with curly hair in the hallway of a school.
Behind the Films
January, 6, 2022

Filmmaker and Clemente Course Students Team Up to Reckon with Systemic Racism

A most unusual arrangement helped A Reckoning in Boston get to its final form. Three individuals with widely divergent backgrounds teamed up for what became a collaborative story about Clemente Course students of color reckoning with Boston's racial history. Filmmaker…
Tribals members pay their respects at Little Chief's reburial at Sharp Nose Cemetery, Wind River Reservation, WY (From Left: Fay Ann Soldier Wolf, Mark Soldier Wolf, Hubert Friday, Nelson White, Crawford White, Yufna Soldier Wolf), 2017
Behind the Films
November, 22, 2021

Northern Arapaho Tribal Members Find Hope in the Unacknowledged History That Haunts Our Present

The Wyoming-based team behind Home From School: The Children of Carlisle worked together to make a powerful documentary about a tribe coming together. It is the story of Northern Arapaho taking back the stories and remains of children who were…
Sian-Pierre and his mother Rebecca pose for a selfie while traveling in Europe, from Duty Free
Behind the Films
November, 10, 2021

“This film has defined me”: A Son’s Bucket List Journey with His Mother

Sian-Pierre Regis has been many things: a journalist, an influencer in multiple social media spheres, founder of​ online cultural magazine Swagger.NYC, and contributor to outlets including CNN, CNNi, HLN, CBSN, and MTV. He also created YOU(th) VOTE!, BET’s multi-platform voting…
Many people in a room paying attention to a Latina caucus leader during the Iowa Caucuses in 2020.
Behind the Films
October, 27, 2021

Going Inside the Family-Run Newspaper Keeping Local Journalism Alive

Beth Levison is no stranger to having her films on Independent Lens. Notable producing credits include Women in Blue and the Emmy-nominated Made in Boise. For her latest film, Storm Lake, she partnered with Jerry Risius, the much sought-after director…
Demonstrators gathered in Albany, New York, in 1971 to demand gay rights and to declare that "Homo Is Healthy."
Behind the Films
September, 16, 2021

Telling the Story of When LGBTQ+ Activists Fought the Establishment and Won

The Los Angeles-based Bennett Singer and the D.C.-based Patrick Sammon have been making widely acclaimed historical documentaries for many years. Sammon was creator and Executive Producer of Codebreaker, a “superb” (The Telegraph) drama-documentary vividly exploring the life of gay British…
Tran To Nga sits with victims of Agent Orange at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Behind the Films
June, 11, 2021

Filmmakers Show How Agent Orange Catastrophe Did Not End with the Vietnam War

The well-oiled, three-person machine behind The People vs. Agent Orange each brought their manifold backgrounds to the table in order to put together a film that involved equal parts investigative journalism, humanistic portrait of victims and fighters, and suspense thriller/detective…
Black and white photograph of a man with dark skin tone helping a young boy use a drill while making a coffin.
Behind the Films
June, 7, 2021

Muslim Casket Maker’s Story Becomes Cinematic Portrait of Resilience and Redemption

The filmmaker brothers Zeshawn and Aman Ali are now based in New York City but originally hail from Columbus, Ohio. "Growing up right outside of Columbus, we were just two kids who didn’t really see people who looked like us…
A smiling Cambodian-American man in a suit offers a pink box of donuts through a drive-thru window.
Behind the Films
May, 21, 2021

From Cambodia to Southern California: Telling the Story of a King of Donut Shops

A Los Angeles native, Alice Gu began her career as a Director of Photography, working with renowned directors Werner Herzog (on his fascinating Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World) and Stacy Peralta. Take Every Wave: The Life of…
Philly D.A. team, Ted Passon, Nicole Salazar, Yoni Brook (l-r)
Behind the Films
April, 19, 2021

How the Team Behind “Philly D.A.” Captured History for Epic Docuseries

Philadelphia-based filmmakers Ted Passon and Yoni Brook, and producer Nicole Salazar, had to work as a well-oiled machine team to make an epic docuseries like Philly D.A. happen. Each one is an award-winning producer in their own right: Brook has…
Filmmaker Ursula Liang with camera on location in New York
Behind the Films
April, 7, 2021

“Nobody Was Listening”: Finding Light in a Dark Stairwell

Filmmaker Ursula Liang's previous documentary 9-Man was about the fascinating titular sport that originated among Chinese immigrant communities in the United States and Canada, and was set in mostly Boston, Washington and Toronto. Her new film Down a Dark Stairwell…
Sgt. Alice White training cadets in procedural justice
Behind the Films
February, 5, 2021

Telling the Story of Gender, Politics, and Violence in America Through the Eyes of Women Police Officers

In addition to her documentaries Still Doing It: The Intimate Lives of Women Over 65, and Suicide On Campus, a web documentary produced in conjunction with The New York Times Magazine, Deirdre Fishel's previous film CARE peeled back the curtain…
Black and white photograph of a large group of women protesting at a rally for equal pay.
Interviews
January, 13, 2021

The Story of 9to5: A Movement that Changed the American Workplace

Julia Reichert and her filmmaking partner and life partner Steve Bognar, have been making documentaries for a long while. Most recently, in 2020, the team won the Academy Award for American Factory, about the reopening of a shuttered auto factory…
Two NFL dancers with light skin tone pose with their backs to the camera and pom-poms in hand in front of a large courthouse.
December, 28, 2020

Battling a Male-Dominated World for Recognition and a Raise

Filmmaker Yu Gu was born in Chongqing, China, raised in Vancouver, Canada, and found her way to the University of Southern California film program. Her films, like the feature documentary that she co-directed Who is Arthur Chu?, which won two…
Myya records for her campaign
Interviews
October, 20, 2020

How Three Passionate Candidates Represent Women Shaping the Future

What does "representation" mean in the midst of a historically tense election year?  In her film Represent, filmmaker Hillary Bachelder sought to show the universal struggle to redefine repressive expectations for women in politics with a look at three women…
From animation of Pepe the Frog playing a video game with pal, from Matt Furie art
Behind the Films
October, 2, 2020

How a Cartoon Frog Became a Symbol for a “Confounding Moment in Our History”

Filmmakers Arthur Jones and Giorgio Angelini both bring very unique artistic backgrounds to the drawing table that led to the fruitful collaboration for Feels Good Man, which is Jones' feature film debut. Both are well-suited to tell the vivid tale…
A woman with medium skin tone poses with her son, also with medium skin tone, in a color photograph from the 70s or 80s. They are both dressed formally.
Behind the Films
June, 9, 2020

How Do You Sort Through 70,000 Videotapes?

The San Jose (CA) native, New York City-based filmmaker Matt Wolf is no stranger to having to comb through archival footage for his documentaries. His film Wild Combination, about the cult avant-garde musician and disco producer Arthur Russell, was set…
The back of a man in a dimly lit editing suite as he looks over old home movies spread across three computer monitors.
Behind the Films
May, 1, 2020

Sasha Joseph Neulinger Confronts Family Trauma Head-On

It's been a pretty impressive run for what was someone's very first feature documentary. But then again, Rewind is no ordinary first film. After Sasha Joseph Neulinger finished film school at Montana State University, he discovered the raw materials that…
Headshot of producer/director Kenneth Rosenberg, a man with light skin tone and gray hair and beard.
Beyond the Films
April, 8, 2020

“My Family’s Tragedy Is an American Tragedy”: Bedlam Filmmaker’s Journey to Depict Mental Health Crisis

In his film Bedlam, Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, MD follows the lives of three patients who find themselves with a chronic lack of institutional support, while he also weaves in his own story of how the system failed his late sister,…
An Asian woman with light skin tone holds her infant child while interviewing her mother for One Child Nation.
Behind the Films
March, 25, 2020

Nanfu Wang’s Riveting Personal Story Probes Impact of One-Child Policy

Taking risks is nothing new for Chinese filmmaker Nanfu Wang. Her previous documentary I Am Another You, which was a SXSW Jury Award-winner and aired on Independent Lens, involved her having to live on the streets with the homeless subject…
A Chinese woman with long hair speaks into a microphone at an event. She wears a white dress with blue and purple flowers.
Behind the Films
February, 5, 2020

Filmmakers Follow Women in China Trying to Overcome Stigma of Being Single

Israeli filmmakers Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia have had films air on international television as well as here in the U.S. on HBO, MTV, Sundance, and PBS (Medalia has received four Emmy nominations and won a Peabody Award), and both…
Three older men speak into microphones while recording for a radio program.
Interviews
January, 22, 2020

Finding Common Ground: The Story of an Unlikely Chicago Alliance

It takes an incredible amount of tenacity and belief in a project to stick with it for 14 years, but that's just how long it took for Ray Santisteban to see his documentary The First Rainbow Coalition come to light.…
A man with dark skin tone holds a phone to his ear. He looks anxious.
Behind the Films
January, 14, 2020

Filmmaker Accepts the Call to Tell Story of a Father and Son Divided

Filmmaker Eunice Lau, who is originally from Singapore (and boy does she have a story to tell you here about the experience of showing her film back home), was once a journalist at Al Jazeera Network. She has a penchant…
An elderly George Attla rides a snowmobile
Interviews
December, 9, 2019

Telling the Incredible True Story of a Dogsledding Legend

Filmmaker Catharine Axley seeks stories of empowerment through subjects that defy expectations, and the lesser-known but remarkable story of George Attla certainly qualifies. Axley's film ATTLA, which won Best Feature Documentary at the American Indian Film Festival, looks at the charismatic Alaska Native…
Phillip Morris hugs his wife when reunited at Minneapolis airport.
Interviews
November, 6, 2019

Following the Journey of Interpreters We Left Behind

Filmmakers Andrés Caballero and Sofian Khan's previous feature-length collaboration Gaucho del Norte, which made its broadcast premiere on public television’s America ReFramed series, followed the journey of a Patagonian immigrant sheepherder recruited to work in the American West. With The Interpreters, the duo took…
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

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…
Surrogate mother Shannon holds a baby, in Made in Boise (her husband Tom looks on)
Beyond the Films
October, 25, 2019

“A Scene I’ll Never Forget.” Filmmaker Intimately Captures Surrogacy Journey in Boise

Emmy and Peabody-winning producer/director Beth Aala has gone from a Pool Party (her first film as director) filled with amazing music, the story of how a swimming pool became the center of a music scene in Brooklyn, to co-directing (with actor Mike Myers)…
The JO Johnson High wrestling team comes in for a hug
Behind the Films
May, 15, 2019

Filmmakers Capture Young Men Wrestling to Succeed and Be Seen

Wrestle may be the feature directing debut of the team of Suzannah Herbert and Lauren Belfer, but after working for industry heavyweights like Martin Scorsese and Michael Moore, they hit the ground running and their award-winning, critically acclaimed film that…
Winemaker Vanessa Robledo control-burning her dry grapevines
Behind the Films
May, 7, 2019

Bernardo Ruiz Tells Story of the Central Role Latinos Play in California Wine Industry

Two-time Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz, who was born in Guanajuato, Mexico and grew up in Brooklyn, made his directorial feature debut with the PBS film Reportero, about attacks on the press in Mexico, which New York Magazine called "a powerful reminder of how…
Copyright IDIOM Film, Courtesy RaMell Ross; Family at hospital, from Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Behind the Films
February, 7, 2019

RaMell Ross Charts “the Visual Story of Blackness” in Oscar-Nominated Doc

Just one year after RaMell Ross' Hale County This Morning, This Evening won a Special Jury Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, the filmmaker will follow his film's television debut on PBS by awaiting the Academy Awards, where it is…
Director Morgan Neville
Interviews
February, 1, 2019

Five Questions About Fred Rogers with Morgan Neville

"When I met Joanne Rogers, I told her I wanted to make a film not about Fred Rogers’ story but about his ideas," filmmaker Morgan Neville wrote about Won't You Be My Neighbor? "She smiled and said that sounded pretty good,…
Black memorabilia figurines
Interviews
January, 30, 2019

The Challenge of Making a Film About Racist Relics

Filmmaker and teacher Chico Colvard's first feature doc, Family Affair, premiered at Sundance and was the first film acquired by Oprah Winfrey for her cable channel, OWN. The searingly personal documentary explored his family's own troubled history that ultimately had a message…
RUMBLE director Catherine Bainbridge, center rear, with members of Ulali
Interviews
January, 11, 2019

RUMBLE Filmmakers Go Deep into the Indigenous Foundations of Rock

The making of RUMBLE was a team effort, all of them passionate about bringing an important story to the world. Director-producer Catherine Bainbridge and co-director Alfonso Maiorana worked with Executive Producer Stevie Salas, a Native American musician, film composer and producer,…
Bringing back a bounty of nutria, in Rodents of Unusual Size
Beyond the Films
January, 10, 2019

11 Questions for 3 Filmmakers About a Million Swamp Rats

The trio of filmmakers behind the Independent Lens film Rodents of Unusual Size -- Jeff Springer, Chris Metzler and Quinn Costello -- have previously captured unique environmental stories with a very human element to them, as Jeff and Chris made the…
Beyond the Films
November, 12, 2018

Filmmakers Navigate the Secretive World of Social Media Censorship in Atmosphere of Fear

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…
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”

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…
Interviews
May, 17, 2018

Documentarians Meet the Real People Behind a Media Firestorm

Documentarians Reuben Atlas and Sam Pollard picked a hefty, complex, but as it turned out incredibly timely subject to collaborate on. The film ACORN and the Firestorm looks at the downfall of the huge community organizing non-profit ACORN, brought about…
Interviews
May, 2, 2018

Documentarian Ventures into the “No Man’s Land” of Malheur Takeover

Documentarian David Garrett Byars is making his feature film debut with No Man’s Land, but he's made short films before. including Recapture, a short documentary chronicling the attempt of right-wing activists to reclaim the federally-managed Recapture Canyon in southern Utah. Clearly…
Interviews
April, 25, 2018

Director Finds Real Life Superheroes with “Conviction”

Filmmaker Jamie Meltzer, also the program director of the MFA program in Documentary Film at Stanford University, has made acclaimed films about a wide collection of topics, from song-poems to Nollywood (Nigerian) film to FBI informants, but each tells a…
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

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…
Interviews
April, 4, 2018

Shoes Wisely: Stacey Tenenbaum Shines a Light on an Age-Old Profession

Award-winning filmmaker Stacey Tenenbaum co-created a critically acclaimed series in Canada, The Beat, which followed a team of beat police officers patrolling the streets of Downtown Vancouver. Exchanging the police beat for shiny feet for her new film, Tenenbaum's The Art of…
Interviews
February, 21, 2018

Filmmaker Theo Anthony’s Ratty Exploration of Urban Segregation

[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

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…
Filmmaker Jennifer Kroot interviews Maupin at steps to the real-life inspiration for Barbary Lane in Tales of the City
Interviews
December, 15, 2017

From North Carolina to San Francisco: Jennifer Kroot Tells the Tales of Maupin

Jennifer Kroot brings a background in underground filmmaking to her documentaries and uses that sensibility to create surprises within her stories. The San Francisco-based filmmaker first caught the eye of writer Armistead Maupin when he saw her documentary To Be…
John Coltrane in concert; credit: Don Schlitten
Interviews
October, 31, 2017

Filmmaker John Scheinfeld Chases Coltrane’s Legacy

Filmmaker John Scheinfeld is no stranger to taking on challenging subjects for documentaries. The Emmy®, Grammy® and Writers Guild Award nominee and writer/director/producer's other films include The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About…
Real Boy filmmaker Shaleece Haas
Interviews
June, 16, 2017

Real Boy Director Shaleece Haas on Filming a Family in Flux

Documentary filmmaker Shaleece Haas has made several acclaimed shorts, worked as an editorial photographer and radio producer, and was a founding staff member of the national oral history project StoryCorps. All those paths led to her intimate feature film debut,…
Alex and Jessica Sutton, doing some hunting, in Farmer/Veteran
Interviews
May, 25, 2017

Filmmakers Capture a Troubled Veteran’s Farm Life

Farmer/Veteran was made by a trio of talented young filmmakers: Alix Blair documented the lives of women in southwestern Uganda for her Master’s work at Duke University; Jeremy Lange has been a photographer and cinematographer whose past film and video work…
Interviews
May, 17, 2017

Ben Lear Shows Reality and Human Face of Juvenile Justice System

They Call Us Monsters is Ben Lear's first film as director, but he's not new to the business. Yes, Ben is the son of trailblazing TV producer-writer Norman Lear of All in the Family and Good Times fame (and you can…
Young Muslim-Chechen player Dzhabrail Kadiev sits with his mom, in moment from Forever Pure
Interviews
May, 11, 2017

Maya Zinshtein Explores How Soccer and Racism Intersected in Israel

Israeli journalist-filmmaker Maya Zinshtein is in many ways the perfect person to make a film about the combustible story of Beitar Jerusalem FC, the Israeli soccer club which imploded when bringing in two foreign Muslim players led to boycotts and…
Prison in Twelve Landscapes filmmaker Brett Story
Interviews
May, 5, 2017

Canadian Filmmaker Explores American Prison System’s Long Reach

Canadian filmmaker Brett Story was recently awarded the inaugural New Visions Award from Canada's DOC Institute, who wrote of her, "Watching Story’s socially engaged but visually driven work provides ample evidence that she was an obvious choice for the award, given…
National Bird director Sonia Kennebeck
Interviews
April, 28, 2017

Sonia Kennebeck Makes Film About the Human Cost of Drone Wars and Whistleblowing

Sonia Kennebeck's film National Bird, which was executive produced by renowned filmmakers Errol Morris and Wim Wenders, takes a risk just by making it in the first place. It tells the story of the United States drone war, from a very…
Mark Barden's son Daniel Barden races the school bus in Newtown
Interviews
April, 3, 2017

Kim A. Snyder Tells Newtown Families’ Deeply Intimate Story

Filmmaker Kim Snyder is no stranger to having to patiently and empathetically ingratiate herself with a community. Her film Welcome to Shelbyville, which was nationally broadcast on Independent Lens, spent time in a small Tennessee town where its residents — whites and African Americans, Latinos…
Joey McGee walks down a road in the Mojave Desert.
Behind the Films
March, 17, 2017

Filmmakers Lou Pepe and Keith Fulton Tell Story of At-Risk Youth Getting Last Chance

Filmmakers Lou Pepe and Keith Fulton have gone from the deserts of Spain (for their acclaimed film Lost in La Mancha about Terry Gilliam's ill-fated attempt to make a Don Quixote film) to the Mojave Desert in California, for their latest…
Interviews
February, 9, 2017

Filmmaker Matt Ornstein Captures Daryl Davis’s Quest to Confront Racism, One Racist at a Time

Filmmaker Matt Ornstein has a background in music videos and short films (one of which, Atlantis, was about that space shuttle's last launch and starred Jason Ritter), but the story of Daryl Davis called to him to the point where…
Silhouetted image of William M. Trotter speaking in protest about Birth of a Nation, from Birth of a Movement
Interviews
February, 2, 2017

Filmmakers Tell Story of William Trotter’s Fight Against Racist Silent Blockbuster

Birth of a Movement, based on Dick Lehr's book, captures the backdrop to a prescient clash between human rights, freedom of speech, and a changing media landscape — that happened in 1915. It is essentially the story of legendary film director D.W.…
The Witness filmmaker James Solomon in profile
Interviews
January, 20, 2017

Filmmaker James Solomon Peels Back the Mythology of the Kitty Genovese Story

The Witness  may be James Solomon's first film as director, but his vast experience as a storyteller made him the perfect fit for reopening this case. The Witness, which made the Oscar shortlist, took 11 years to make, patiently following Kitty…
Wind River Director, Mat Hames, and DP, Wilson Waggoner, film a Northern Arapaho child at the Ethete Powwow.
Interviews
January, 11, 2017

Filmmaker Mat Hames Goes to Wind River to Amplify Native Voices

Award-winning filmmaker Mat Hames’s feature documentary, When I Rise, about African American mezzo-soprano and civil rights icon Barbara Conrad, was featured on Independent Lens and nominated for an IDA Documentary Award. One of Mat's other films, Last Best Hope, about…
Nicky Nuke graphic by artist Peter Kuper
Interviews
January, 6, 2017

Containment Filmmakers Go into the Future to Read the Warning Signs

Harvard professors and filmmakers Peter Galison and Robb Moss have been collaborating for a decade: first, in co-teaching a course, bringing student filmmakers into scientific laboratories to think about the way the real work of technology, medicine, and science could…
Filmmaker siblings Ravi and Geeta Patel of Meet the Patels
Interviews
December, 22, 2016

For Filmmakers Geeta and Ravi Patel, Love Is a Family Affair

It was a long and winding road for sibling filmmakers Geeta Patel and her brother Ravi in the making of their film Meet the Patels — including not just the initial family trip to India, but many air miles racked up…
Interviews
July, 27, 2016

In the Ring with the USA’s First Women’s Boxing Olympic Gold Medalist

Zackary Canepari and Drea Cooper's film T-Rex: Her Fight for Gold tells the story of Claressa "T-Rex" Shields, who at the 2012 London Olympics became the first American woman to win a Gold medal in boxing. After a long, hard road coming…
Filmmaker Abigail Disney sits down with Lucy McBath for the film Armor of Light
Behind the Films
May, 9, 2016

Abigail Disney Wields the Power of Dialogue with The Armor of Light

Abigail Disney (her grandfather was Roy O. Disney, Walt's brother and co-founder of the Walt Disney Company, just to get that out of the way) has long been a producer of award-winning documentaries, including producing The Invisible War (Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated film for…
Peace Officer filmmakers Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber (l-r)
Behind the Films
May, 6, 2016

Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber Capture a Man on a Mission

Utah-based filmmakers Scott Christopherson and Brad Barber found a supremely compelling story right in their own backyard for their film Peace Officer. The film is several things at once: a personal journey with a man who experienced a tragedy, former sheriff “Dub”…
My Nazi Legacy filmmaker David Evans
Interviews
April, 27, 2016

Downton Abbey Director David Evans Talks About Nazi Legacy Doc

Award-winning English director David Evans helmed the feature film Fever Pitch (the original, superior British version about soccer, starring Colin Firth, for which Nick Hornby adapted his best-selling book of the same name), and is now established as a leading director…
Behind the Films
March, 31, 2016

“Leith” Filmmakers Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker Capture a Town in a Powderkeg

Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker have produced eye-popping, gritty fare before, including an acclaimed film about street dancing, Flex Is Kings, and the HBO film Hard Times: Lost in Long Island (which Walker edited), but making Welcome to Leith was a…
James "The Amazing" Randi stands casting large shadow against wall
Interviews
March, 23, 2016

Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein Unlock the Mystery of James “The Amazing” Randi

As famous a skeptic as he is a magician, James "The Amazing" Randi has led a life full of magic and mystery, as much off the stage as on it, and a naturally compelling subject for a documentary. Blessed with…
Saeed Shariff Torres drives through the streets of Pittsburgh.
Interviews
February, 22, 2016

Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe Capture an FBI Informant

To do a film about an undercover FBI anti-terror sting is already tricky territory to navigate, but filmmakers Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe infiltrated even deeper. In (T)ERROR, they gained unprecedented access to an FBI informant, for a documentary Brian Tallerico (on…
Black Panthers exiting building armed with rifles.
Interviews
February, 11, 2016

Stanley Nelson Reveals the Real Black Panther Party

Filmmaker Stanley Nelson, who won an Emmy for the PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till, three Emmys for Freedom Riders, and made an acclaimed film about Marcus Garvey, has for years aimed his probing but fair-minded lens on civil rights history. Along…
Behind the Films
February, 5, 2016

Nelson George Captures the Poise of Misty Copeland to Tell a Ballerina’s Tale

Author, filmmaker, television producer, and critic Nelson George may have worn a lot of hats in his long career, but his love for music has been  constant throughout. He's published numerous non-fiction books on black music history as well as a series…
East of Salinas filmmakers Laura Pacheco and Jackie Mow (l-r), in front of a sea-themed mural.
Interviews
December, 25, 2015

Laura Pacheco and Jackie Mow Tell the Story of a Farmworker’s Studious Son

Not just a filmmaker but a trained anthropologist, Laura Pacheco has traveled the world to tell the stories of people overcoming the odds of their rough circumstances, including for the Emmy Award-winning series Rx for Survival (PBS), where she followed a…
Mimi and Dona filmmaker Sophie Sartain
Interviews
November, 19, 2015

Sophie Sartain Finds Resonance in Her Family’s Caregiving Story

Longtime documentary film writer, editor, and fundraiser Sophie Sartain decided to go personal for her directorial debut. Her film Mimi and Dona enters the world of Sophie's grandmother and developmentally disabled aunt, who after sixty years together face their inevitable separation. Shot over the course…
India's Daughter filmmaker Leslee Udwin
Interviews
November, 12, 2015

India’s Daughter Director Leslee Udwin on the Rape Case that Shocked a Nation

[caption id="attachment_11517" align="alignnone" width="813"] Candle-lit vigils were held throughout India to mourn the death of Jyoti Singh[/caption] It should go without saying that documentary filmmakers put their hearts and souls into their films, but the gender-equality activism at the core of Leslee…
Filmmaker Theo Love
Uncategorized
April, 3, 2015

Theo Love Finds Hope in Little Hope Was Arson

Theo Love’s documentary Little Hope Was Arson, which premieres on Independent Lens on PBS Monday night April 6 at 10pm (check local listings), explores a chilling series of connected arson fires set in East Texas in 2010, all involving churches, and…
American Denial filmmakers Llewellyn Smith, Christine Herbes-Sommers, and Kelly Thomson.
Interviews
February, 23, 2015

Christine Herbes-Sommers Talks about Film on Racial Bias in America, Then and Now

[caption id="attachment_6486" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Gunnar Myrdal with Ralph Bunche in Washington D.C., 1942[/caption] American Denial tells the the story of Swedish researcher Gunnar Myrdal, whose landmark 1944 study, An American Dilemma, probed deep into the United States' racial psyche. The…
Filmmakers Tracy Droz Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo
Interviews
January, 2, 2015

Filmmaker-Cousins Return to Rich Hill

Rich Hill won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and plenty of critical acclaim — Katie Walsh of Indiewire called it "a truly moving and edifying film...the type of media object that could and should be put in…
Headshot of How to Survive a Plague filmmaker David France
Uncategorized
December, 30, 2013

How to Survive a Plague: Q&A with David France

"The 2nd best film of the year" - Wesley Morris, Boston Globe Top Ten Movies of 2012. "It’s hard to overstate how ingenious France’s formal choices are...The material has been shaped in an artful manner that devastates, rouses, and shames." "Riveting...moving…
Invisible War filmmakers Amy Ziering and Kirby Dick.
Uncategorized
May, 9, 2013

Invisible War Director Kirby Dick on the Healing Power of Film

The Invisible War (airing May 13 on Independent Lens) could hardly be broadcasting on a more relevant week. On Tuesday, the Pentagon released a report that showed a spike in military sexual assaults. It estimated 26,000 military members were assaulted…
Seeking Asian Female director Debbie Lum with subject Steven.
May, 2, 2013

Director Debbie Lum on Romance, “Rice Kings,” and Reluctantly Appearing in Her Film

Reality is a slippery medium. Just when a documentary filmmaker thinks she understands a story, people surprise her. Such it was for Debbie Lum. When she first started filming Seeking Asian Female, Lum hoped to dissect a cultural phenomenon that…
Sheriffs in New Mexico at Sunset, in House I Live In, photo by Derek Hallquist
Interviews
April, 5, 2013

Eugene Jarecki on Fighting the Good Fight and Taking a Closer Look at the War on Drugs

We sat down with acclaimed filmmaker Eugene Jarecki to talk with him about his penetrating look at the profound human rights implications of America’s longest war: the War on Drugs. His film, The House I Live In, premiered on Independent…
B&W photo of Jerry Rothwell, director of Donor Unknown
Interviews
October, 17, 2011

Jerry Rothwell Explores the Meaning of Family in Donor Unknown

Jerry Rothwell is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes the award-winning feature docs Heavy Load (IFC/ITVS/BBC), about a group of people with learning disabilities who form a punk band; and Deep Water (Pathe/FilmFour/UK Film Council, co‐directed with Louise Osmond), about Donald…