Blog

Rat in trash can

February 27, 2018

Rat Film – “Rats Put Food on My Table” – Clip

Independent Lens in

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Interviews

February 21, 2018

Filmmaker Theo Anthony’s Ratty Exploration of Urban Segregation

Craig Phillips in Interviews

[pullquote]"It’s cool to watch younger audiences watch the film, because they just get the filmic language right away. It’s a film that feels more like an Instagram story than a…...

Group of children outside of school with books in hand looks colonial

February 20, 2018

Tell Them We Are Rising – Separate But Unequal

Independent Lens in

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Musician/Composer Dan Deacon performing; photo by Adam Boaz
Beyond the Films

February 16, 2018

10 Questions with “Rat Film” Composer Dan Deacon: On Baltimore, Rats, Player Pianos and Theremins

Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films

Baltimore-based composer/musician Dan Deacon did the music for Theo Anthony's Rat Film. The film, which uses the urban rat as a way to explore a deeper story of urbanization and…...

An HBCU student tears up at his graduation, from Tell Them We Are Rising
Beyond the Films

February 15, 2018

HBCU Grads Share Their Stories of Campus Life

Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films

Graduates of Historic Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are proud alums, and in connection with the Independent Lens film Tell Them We Are Rising, which tells the 170 years—and rising—history of…...

Wooden Figure Lying On Floor Watching Television, By Andrey_Popov, via Shutterstock
Lists

February 13, 2018

Beyond Romance: Searching for the Meaning of Love on Screen

Independent Lens in Lists

Although there are as many ways to love as there are people to do the loving, we are trained from an early age to value the pair-bond above all else.…...

Miriam Makeba (r) with Dizzy Gillespie in France 1991
Beyond the Films

January 30, 2018

For “Winnie”: Anti-Apartheid Songs of Protest

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Miriam Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie, 1991[/caption] By Sarah Bardeen, guest contributor Modern South Africa was forged in apartheid. The struggle defined life for generations of South…...

Winnie Mandela in a press conference, late 80s
Interviews

January 29, 2018

“Winnie” Filmmaker Gives a New Perspective on Anti-Apartheid Activist Winnie Mandela

Craig Phillips in Interviews

Filmmaker Pascale Lamche took on the enormous but important challenge of documenting Winnie Mandela's story, a narrative, as she discovered, that was slightly skewed in the mind of many across…...

Tell Them We Are Rising filmmakers Marco Williams and Stanley Nelson (l-r)
Interviews

January 26, 2018

Filmmakers Marco Williams and Stanley Nelson Tell an Essential Chapter of American History in Story of HBCUs

Craig Phillips in Interviews

Tell Them We Are Rising, which premieres on Independent Lens on PBS Monday, February 19 at 9 pm [check local listings], covers the rich history of America’s Historically Black Colleges and…...

Dylan with filmmaker Nanfu Wang reflected at right, shooting I Am Another You
Interviews

January 24, 2018

How a Chinese Filmmaker Ended up in Florida with a Drifter from Utah

Craig Phillips in Interviews

Nanfu Wang was a student at NYU when she went exploring America, which found her in Florida staying at a hostel. There she encountered a young drifter named Dylan, whom…...

The cast of Served Like a Girl, posing for the Ms Veteran America pageant
Announcements

January 19, 2018

Independent Lens Announces Spring 2018 Slate of Award-Winning Films

Independent Lens in Announcements

Independent Lens, which recently won the 2017 IDA Documentary Award for Best Curated Series from the International Documentary Association, now officially announces our March-May 2018 lineup on PBS. Dolores, Peter…...

The Force, riding in police car with Officer Cairo
Interviews

January 17, 2018

Balancing Along the Thin Blue Line, Filmmaker Captures Police Force at an Explosive Time

Craig Phillips in Interviews

A follow-up to his acclaimed, Independent Spirit Truer than Fiction Award-winning film The Waiting Room (Independent Lens, 2013), Pete Nicks' The Force is part of a trilogy of films he's making which…...