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A cartoon panel depicting a man with light skin, glasses, and brown hair holding his arm that is shaking from Parkinson's disease.
Beyond the Films
April, 8, 2024

A Cartoonist Talks About How to Be an Artist with Parkinson’s

Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films

Cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD) at the age of 43. In the documentary Matter of Mind: My Parkinson's, he remarks, "To lose the ability to draw would be a catastrophic loss of myself in a sense." …
Cover of Peter Dunlop-Shohl's graphic novel, "My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson's." It depicts an illustration of a shaking man with light skin tone, glasses, and brown hair.
Contests
April, 5, 2024

Giveaway: Win a Copy of the Book “My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson’s”

Independent Lens in Contests

One of the stars of the documentary Matter of Mind: My Parkinson's is cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Stohl, who comes to grips with the “malicious whimsy” of this chronic, progressive, and disabling disease through his art. His "graphic medicine" (rather than graphic…
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

Craig Phillips 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…
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

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

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…
A woman with her hair in braids is superimposed over a purple-hued Los Angeles at dusk.
September, 7, 2023

The Tuba Thieves

Independent Lens

What is the role of sound and what does it mean to listen? Hard of hearing filmmaker Alison O’Daniel uses a series of tuba thefts in Los Angeles high schools as a jumping-off point to explore these questions. Through several…
Armistead Maupin at typewriter in the 1970s, from Untold Tales
Contests
June, 5, 2023

Celebrate Armistead Maupin for Pride and Win a Copy of “Logical Family: A Memoir”

Independent Lens in Contests

If you are a fan of the Tales of the City series and the Independent Lens documentary Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin, celebrate Armistead Maupin's wonderful life and career, and LGBTQ+ Pride Month, by entering for your chance to win…
Yuji Okumoto as Shu Kai Kim, Robert Downey Jr. and James Woods standing in front of prison cell bars, in True Believer
Beyond the Films
May, 25, 2023

From True Believer to The Help, How the White Gaze Has Shown Hollywood’s Shortsightedness

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

An Essay by Dana Verde [Sources and further reading listed at the end] They say hindsight is 20/20 and, historically, stories about real BIPOC characters in both mainstream film and television have had an obstructed, blurred, or blinded view—depending on…
Book cover for Storming Caesars Palace with activist Ruby Duncan and other people of color protesting for universal basic income
Contests
May, 25, 2023

Book Giveaway! Storming Caesars Palace

Independent Lens in Contests

Dig deeper into our award-winning documentary Storming Caesars Palace. We're giving away ten copies of the book that inspired it, Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their War on Poverty, by Annelise Orleck. Enter for your chance to win! 'Storming Caesars Palace' Book Giveaway
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 woman with light skin tone and dark hair wears a qipao and writes with a calligraphy brush.
Behind the Films
March, 27, 2023

Telling the Story of Keeping the Secret Nüshu Language Alive

Craig Phillips in Behind the Films

"Besides a well, one does not thirst. Besides a sister, one does not despair." — Nüshu poem Inspired by a bestselling book that featured Nüshu, filmmaker Violet Du Feng was surprised at how little she and most Chinese people knew…
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…
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

Independent Lens in Behind the Films

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…