January 04, 2019
RUMBLE On: More Native American Musicians You Should Know
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
by Gregg McVicar, Host and producer of UnderCurrents on Native Voice One Rock and roll was born in the United States, and it makes sense that some of its forerunners…...
December 21, 2018
Director Duo Show No Easy Answers in Fight Over Land
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
The team behind the new Independent Lens film My Country No More, Rita Baghdadi and Jeremiah Hammerling, told us they were drawn to Hammerling's native North Dakota to make this film "because his…...
December 18, 2018
Favorite Nonfiction Podcasts That Will Keep You Glued to Your Headphones
Independent Lens in Lifestyle
By Brooke Shelby Biggs We nonfiction nerds who are compulsive documentary watchers are usually also public radio listeners and magazine readers. Who among us doesn’t have a closet full of…...
December 11, 2018
Filmmaker Explores a Preacher’s Shocking Sacrifice and How It Can Start a Conversation
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Joel Fendelman's Man on Fire, which has its television premiere on Independent Lens, won the David L. Wolper Student documentary award at the 2017 IDA Awards. The story at its heart…...
November 14, 2018
Erika Cohn Unfolds a New Perception of Shari’a Law in Portrait of Remarkable Woman
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Erika Cohn, who co-directed (with Tony Vainuku) the Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens doc In Football We Trust, went from the gridiron in Utah to the Shari'a courts of Palestine for her…...
November 12, 2018
Filmmakers Navigate the Secretive World of Social Media Censorship in Atmosphere of Fear
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
You know German filmmakers Moritz Riesewieck and Hans Block are sharp-minded characters when you learn they work collaboratively under the label “Laokoon,” named after the legendary Trojan seer Laocoön who…...
November 08, 2018
Delete or Ignore? Pretend You’re a Facebook Content Moderator
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
In 2018, after much debate and controversy, Facebook finally published its censorship policies. All 27 pages of them. The move, wrote the LA Times, "adds a new degree of transparency…...
October 29, 2018
Filmmakers Seek the Truth in Eye-Opening Story of Forced Native Child Separation
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Before there was Dawnland, there was First Light, a shorter version of the same story about the forced separation of Native American children that helped lead to the trust necessary to tell…...
October 24, 2018
The Toll: Wildland Firefighters Share Stories from the Job
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
Fallen firefighter Robert E. Caldwell, a Granite Mountain hotshot who perished in the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, said to a comrade, "I’d rather die in my boots than live…...
October 19, 2018
Filmmakers Turned Firefighters Venture Behind the Lines in “Wildland”
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
Filmmaker Alex Jablonski and his filmmaking partner Khalil Hudson had quite the arduous, smoke-filled journey to make the film Wildland. The documentary premieres on Independent Lens Monday, Oct. 29. Alex told…...
October 02, 2018
Independent Lens Wins Two 2018 News & Documentary Emmys: TOWER and Forever Pure
Craig Phillips in Awards
The News & Documentary Emmy Awards were presented on Monday, October 1, 2018, in a ceremony at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City,…...
August 29, 2018
Paperback Throwback: Favorite Comfort Books
Craig Phillips in Lifestyle
There's something about a paperback book, that fading feel of a flexible, tangible book, of buying one used and finding weird notes scribbled in the margins, the musty smell after…...