Blog

April, 14, 2009

Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

Independent Lens

Three decades ago, Wangari Maathai suggested to rural women in her native Kenya that they plant trees for firewood and to stop soil erosion — an act that grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, defend human rights,…
February, 10, 2009

Tulia, Texas

Independent Lens

“This is a story about how our idea of justice gets corrupted when we declare war on something.” — Jeff Blackburn, criminal defense attorney On July 23, 1999, undercover narcotics agent Thomas Coleman carried out one of the biggest drug stings…
May, 27, 2008

New Year Baby

Independent Lens

Born in a Thai refugee camp on Cambodian New Year, filmmaker Socheata Poeuv grew up in the United States never knowing that her family had survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. In New Year Baby, she embarks on a journey to…
February, 26, 2008

Hard Road Home

Independent Lens

Hard Road Home follows two former felons in different stages of life on the outside, illustrating the seemingly insurmountable effort and amount of energy, resources, and strength of character required to change the fate of just one person.
A black family walks down the road after being forced from their home in 19th century America.
February, 19, 2008

Banished

Independent Lens

A hundred years ago, in communities across the U.S., white residents forced thousands of black families to flee their homes. Even a century later, these towns remain almost entirely white. Banished tells the story of three of these communities and…
December, 18, 2007

An Unreasonable Man

Independent Lens

In 1966, General Motors, then the most powerful corporation in the world, sent private investigators to dig up dirt on an obscure 32-year-old public interest lawyer named Ralph Nader. The reason: Nader had written a book that criticized the Corvair,…
A man stands in front of a muddy tropical field, in front of a one-room cement structure
May, 15, 2007

Sentenced Home

Independent Lens

Putting a human face on controversial immigration policy, Sentenced Home follows three young Cambodian Americans through the deportation process. Raised in inner city Seattle, they pay an unbearable price for mistakes they made as teenagers. Caught between their tragic pasts…
Former Enron chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay.
April, 24, 2007

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Independent Lens

Who would think a documentary about the collapse of a mammoth corporation could play out like a drama with the emotional power of Greek tragedy? But that is the impact of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, the inside…
Ethiopian women sit across from one another at a long table, picking through piles of coffee beans
April, 10, 2007

Black Gold

Independent Lens

Multinational coffee companies rule shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the $80-billion-plus coffee industry. But while Americans continue to pay for luxury lattes and cappuccinos, the prices paid to coffee farmers remain so low that many have been forced to…
Young Chinese girl in a blue jeans factory.
April, 3, 2007

China Blue

Independent Lens

They live crowded together in cement factory dormitories where water has to be carried upstairs in buckets. Their meals and rent are deducted from their wages, which amount to less than a dollar a day. Most of the jeans they…
A man sits in a jail cell
March, 27, 2007

Race to Execution

Independent Lens

Race discrimination infects America’s capital punishment system. According to a landmark study regarding race and the death penalty, a black defendant who kills a white victim is up to 30 times more likely to be sentenced to death than a…
January, 23, 2007

Beyond the Call

Independent Lens

In a Mother-Teresa-meets-Indiana-Jones adventure, three middle-aged modern-day knights travel the world delivering life-saving humanitarian aid directly to civilians and doctors at the front lines of war. Their work takes them to some of the most dangerous yet beautiful places on…