Blog

Mini model of a classroom safety drill with figurines of a teacher and students leaving their classroom in a line.
Beyond the Films
February, 8, 2022

What Americans Will Do to Feel Safe in Schools

Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films

What is the cost of feeling "safe" in American classrooms in an era when mass shootings have become more commonplace? The documentary Bulletproof takes a unique vérité approach in exploring and interrogating how we approach safety, intercutting between different high…
July, 16, 2021

Storm Lake

Independent Lens

Does American democracy survive without the backbone of independent local journalism? Go inside The Storm Lake Times, a family-run newspaper serving an Iowa town that has seen its share of changes in the 40 years since Big Agriculture came to…
High school age girl and boy looking at piece of paper in classroom.
July, 2, 2021

Try Harder!

Independent Lens

At Lowell High School, San Francisco's academic pressure cooker, the kids are stressed out. With a majority Asian American student body, high-achieving seniors share their dreams and anxieties about getting into a top university. But is college worth the grind?
man leaning in to listen to someone talking
July, 2, 2021

A Reckoning in Boston

Independent Lens

What happens when you discover that your assumptions are flawed? A white filmmaker starts his academic inquiry by documenting low-income, adult students of color at the Clemente Course in Boston. Over time, he comes to terms with his own complicity…
Woman with head in CT scanner
July, 2, 2021

AWARE: Glimpses of Consciousness

Independent Lens

What is the science behind consciousness? Six brilliant researchers from around the world—a brain scientist, a plant behaviorist, a healer, a philosophy professor, a psychedelics scientist, and a Buddhist monk—take you on a mind-blowing quest to investigate this seemingly unsolvable…
Children Figurines and teacher in classroom headed to panic room
July, 2, 2021

Bulletproof

Independent Lens

What is the cost of feeling safe? In an era of mass shootings, lockdown drills and teacher firearms training are as much a part of life as homecoming dances and basketball practice. Take a provocative look at fear, violence, and…
A person scanning their face on smartphone on city street, in a Still from Coded Bias, directed by Shalini Kantayya
Beyond the Films
April, 5, 2021

Coded Bias” Asks: Are Our Faces Being Used Against Us?

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Christina Sturdivant Sani Coded Bias begins with MIT researcher Joy Boulamwini’s quest to find out why facial recognition technology inaccurately viewed her beautifully-hued brown face. After viewing the documentary with my friend India, a UX designer, and my husband Hamzat,…
MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini in Coded Bias
Behind the Films
April, 3, 2021

“Coded Bias” Explores Blurring of Real and Imagined Artificial Intelligence

Craig Phillips in Behind the Films

Shalini Kantayya has directed visually eye-catching and memorable work for both National Geographic TV with Breakthrough, a series profiling trailblazing scientists transforming the future) and the documentary Catching the Sun, about the race for a clean energy future, a New…
Jonathan Scott at a solar company in Nevada, with solar panel
Behind the Films
November, 6, 2020

Jonathan Scott Investigates Who Controls Our Power

Craig Phillips in Behind the Films

In some ways Jonathan Scott should need no introduction—or so you'd think as co-host with his brother Drew of the hugely popular HGTV shows Property Brothers and Brother vs. Brother, which air in more than 160 countries, and as a…
Portrait of a young Latino man.
October, 28, 2020

The Graduates / Los Graduados

Independent Lens

The Graduates / Los Graduados explores pressing issues in education today through the eyes of six Latino and Latina students from across the United States. More than a survey of contemporary policy debates, the bilingual, two-part film offers first-hand perspectives…
Jonathan Scott sits on a Spanish tiled roof that's covered in solar panels.
August, 31, 2020

Jonathan Scott’s Power Trip

Independent Lens

Property Brothers co-host and home-renovation expert Jonathan Scott journeys all across the U.S. to uncover why clean, renewable energy isn’t available to all. While traveling to learn both the obstacles and opportunities for achieving energy freedom, Jonathan talks with conservatives…
Beyond the Films
August, 27, 2020

The Science of Kindness: It’s Not Easy Being Nice

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

Author Josh Kurz is a science communicator and filmmaker, and the co-creator of the audio program Shabam, which uses a zombie apocalypse to talk about real science. By Josh Kurz You might know someone like "Scott." Fun at parties, has…