Blog

Stylized poster with a bulldozer superimposed over a colorful housing project with palm trees. Above the housing project is an image of the shoreline.
September, 7, 2023

Razing Liberty Square

Independent Lens

Liberty City, Miami, was home to one of the oldest segregated public housing projects in the U.S. Now with rising sea levels, the neighborhood’s higher ground has become something else: real estate gold. Wealthy property owners push inland to higher…
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…
Hand holding megaphone in the air
September, 6, 2023

Breaking the News

Independent Lens

Who decides which stories get told? A scrappy group of women and LGBTQ+ journalists buck the white male-dominated status quo, banding together to launch The 19th*, a digital news startup aiming to combat misinformation. A story of an America in…
An illustration of a red hand holding a pine sapling. A photo of a family is superimposed on the arm above the hand.
September, 6, 2023

A Thousand Pines

Independent Lens

Over the course of a grueling eight months, a crew of Oaxacan guest workers plant trees throughout the United States. This intimate portrait shows how hard it is to balance the physical demands of reforestation and extreme isolation while staying…
A small red boat powers through still water. A figure at the front of the boat holds a harpoon ready to be thrown. Below the boat, the tail of a whale appears.
September, 6, 2023

One With the Whale

Independent Lens

Hunting whales is a matter of life or death for the residents of St. Lawrence. When a shy Alaska Native teen becomes the youngest person ever to harpoon a whale for his village, his family is blindsided by thousands of…
A man with medium skin tone, shaved head, and salt and pepper beard wears a US military uniform and bows his head in prayer.
July, 18, 2023

Three Chaplains

Independent Lens

Muslim chaplains in the U.S. military support and defend the religious rights of all service members. But their leadership sparks accusations of disloyalty and even disapproval from within their own communities. Resisting calls to blend in, the chaplains fight to…
Several women in colorful hijabs bow their heads in prayer inside a wood-paneled Islamic center in Texas.
July, 18, 2023

A Town Called Victoria

Independent Lens

When the local mosque is burned to the ground in an apparent hate crime, the town of Victoria must overcome its age-old political, racial, and economic divides to find a collective way forward. A Reel South and Independent Lens co-production.…
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…
Two men standing outside building that says Punjabi
June, 7, 2023

Spice Road

Independent Lens

In Spice Road, a food and travel series spreading the joy of South Asian cuisine, culture, and community, actor Rupak Ginn road-trips across America’s small towns and big cities, where intrepid immigrants set up eateries as eclectic as South Asia…
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…
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…