Blog

A woman demonstrates the polluted tap water in her home in West Virginia after chemical spill, in What Lies Upstream
January, 18, 2018

What Lies Upstream

Independent Lens

In the unsettling exposé What Lies Upstream, investigative filmmaker Cullen Hoback travels to West Virginia to study the unprecedented loss of clean water for over 300,000 Americans in the 2014 Elk River chemical spill. There he uncovers a shocking failure…
Unrest filmmaker Jen Brea
Interviews
January, 4, 2018

Filmmaker with M.E./Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Investigates Her Own Medical Mystery in Unrest

Craig Phillips in Interviews

To say filmmaker Jen Brea has made the most of her challenging situation would be a vast understatement. Burdened with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), she produced her film Unrest for the most part literally from her bed, yet managed…
Unrest signature image with Jen Brea getting a test on her brainwaves, including IL audience award graphic now
August, 31, 2017

Unrest

Independent Lens

Filmmaker Jennifer Brea was a Harvard PhD student soon to be engaged when she was struck down by a mysterious fever that left her bedridden. As her illness progressed she lost even the ability to sit in a wheelchair, yet…
Alex and Jessica Sutton, doing some hunting, in Farmer/Veteran
Interviews
May, 25, 2017

Filmmakers Capture a Troubled Veteran’s Farm Life

Craig Phillips in Interviews

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…
National Bird director Sonia Kennebeck
Interviews
April, 28, 2017

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

Craig Phillips in Interviews

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…
Army veteran Alex Sutton holds a baby bird in Farmer Veteran
August, 23, 2016

Farmer/Veteran

Independent Lens

Home from three combat tours in Iraq, Alex Sutton forges a new identity as a farmer, hatching chicks and raising goats on 43 acres in rural North Carolina. Farmer/Veteran shows Alex diving into life on the farm with his new…
Wilhemina Dixon, star of Wilhemina's War, looks across a field, while wearing a red bandanna
Interviews
February, 25, 2016

June Cross Tells the Story of a Family Fighting HIV in South Carolina

Craig Phillips in Interviews

June Cross, who has two national Emmys and two duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards to her credit and is the founder of the Documentary Program at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, has always been interested in documenting families and issues of…
Dayshal Dicks with her niece Brianna Hallingquest
Beyond the Films
February, 23, 2016

African Americans Hit Hardest by HIV in the South

Lisa Ko in Beyond the Films

While HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence to the same extent it was 20 years ago, 50,000 Americans are diagnosed with HIV each year, and the disparities are startling when broken down by race, gender, and region. As reflected…
Stephen, at home, explaining how you know when you're in love
Beyond the Films
January, 8, 2016

More Than Rain Man: Autism Portrayals on Screen

Noel Murray in Beyond the Films

For a long time, the Oscar-winning 1988 drama Rain Man wasn’t just the best-known representation of autism on film, it was a lot of people’s only frame of reference for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in general. But over the past…
Filmmaker Matt Fuller, director of Autism in Love, in black and white portrait
Behind the Films
January, 6, 2016

Matt Fuller Explores the Autism Spectrum with Intimate Film

Craig Phillips in Behind the Films

Filmmaker Matt Fuller began his career in Hollywood, working for Sony Pictures in various capacities (on such films as Vacancy, Prom Night, and The Stepfather), and went on to supervise the development and production of Warner Bros.’s Arthur and Relativity’s Limitless. Eventually, Fuller decided he…
An elderly woman sits on her porch.
December, 1, 2015

Wilhemina’s War

Independent Lens

In much of America, progress in HIV/AIDS treatment and improvement in education may suggest the worst is behind us, but every year 50,000 Americans are still diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS. Astonishingly, nearly half of them live in…
Dona and her mother Mimi stand on their suburban Dallas porch
Beyond the Films
November, 20, 2015

The Cost of Love: Caring for Adults with Intellectual or Developmental Disabilities

Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films

Did you know that November is National Family Caregiver Month? (Here are some suggested ways of thanking the caregivers in your life.) The care of aging adults is a problem we all face, especially with more and more Americans living longer, but caring…