June 19, 2014
Rest in Peace, Jimmy Scott
Craig Phillips in
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="550"] Jimmy Scott, at a jazz club in NYC, 2004[/caption] Jazz vocalist Jimmy Scott, the subject of the Independent Lens documentary (and 2004 IL Audience Award Winner) Jimmy Scott: If…...
June 16, 2014
Vote for the 2013-2014 Independent Lens Audience Award!
Craig Phillips in
Now that the Independent Lens 2013-2014 season is officially concluded, voting for the Audience Award is heating up. If you haven't already, rate and vote for your favorite films from…...
June 12, 2014
The New Black: Yoruba Richen Expands the Conversation on Marriage Equality
Craig Phillips in Uncategorized
Yoruba Richen brings to her films a diverse perspective coming from a multifaceted background, all of which came into play when making her new documentary The New Black. "As The…...
June 10, 2014
LGBTQ Pride: Movies That Rocked Their World [Updated]
Craig Phillips in Film History
June is always LGBTQ Pride Month, and traditionally it's been both a time for reflection on gay history and struggles (originally created to commemorate the Stonewall riots of June 1969), along with…...
June 10, 2014
Independent Lens Statement on Somaly Mam
Independent Lens in
Due to the questions that have recently been raised regarding Somaly Mam, one of the women featured in Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, PBS has stopped offering to public television…...
May 16, 2014
Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams on God Loves Uganda
Craig Phillips in Uncategorized
Roger Ross Williams won an Academy Award for his short documentary Music by Prudence, which told the moving story of 21-year-old Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Prudence Mabhena, who was born severely disabled and has struggled to…...
May 12, 2014
The MOVE Bombings 29 Years Later
Craig Phillips in Where Are They Now?
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="594"] MOVE members and police during the 1978 confrontation outside MOVE headquarters.[/caption] It's the week of the 29th anniversary of the MOVE bombings, and for those who were…...
May 09, 2014
Jason Osder Explores an American Tragedy in Let the Fire Burn
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Let the Fire Burn, which won Best Editing in a Documentary Feature and nabbed Jason Osder Best New Documentary Director at the Tribeca Film Festival, manages to tell the supremely tense and tragic story of the…...
May 06, 2014
Decisions on Deadline: Journalism Game
Craig Phillips in Test Your Knowledge
Connected to Samantha Grant's film A Fragile Trust: Plagiarism, Power, and Jayson Blair at The New York Times, which premiered this week on Independent Lens (check local listings to see if it's…...
May 02, 2014
Filmmaker Samantha Grant on the Saga of Jayson Blair
Craig Phillips in
In A Fragile Trust, Samantha Grant explores one of the most infamous scandals in recent media history, the complicated but disturbing story of Jayson Blair, wunderkind reporter who disgraced himself and…...
April 21, 2014
Freddy Camalier Finds FAME at Muscle Shoals
Craig Phillips in Uncategorized
Muscle Shoals may bring you some familiar music — joyously familiar — but its story of a little studio (and then two little studios) in a small city in Alabama, and the man who…...
April 18, 2014
A Musical Journey Through Muscle Shoals
Craig Phillips in Uncategorized
The word “magic” is mentioned a lot in Muscle Shoals, a mesmerizing documentary that tries to explain, or at least place in context, the extraordinary success of FAME (founded by…...