June 28, 2019
Women of the Space Agency: Once Forbidden, No Longer Hidden
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Heather Archuletta In July of 1999, on Apollo 11’s 30th anniversary, at a Kennedy Space Center press conference, NASA astronaut and first moonwalker Neil Armstrong lamented, “School children used…...
May 14, 2019
High School Coaches Wear Many Hats to Make an Impact
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Katrina Schwartz Driving kids home from practice, taking them to visit colleges, running and lifting weights with them out of season, answering the phone in the middle of the…...
May 08, 2019
Harvest Season’s Historical Roots: Latinos in the Napa and Sonoma Valleys
826chi in Beyond the Films
Bittersweet -- this is the taste you’re left with after watching Harvest Season’s central storylines come to a close. Loved ones are reunited while wineries are engulfed in flames and…...
April 26, 2019
Native Hawaiian Prisoners Learn Their Culture While Far From Home
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Christine Hitt The Independent Lens documentary Out of State follows Native Hawaiian exiting inmates, who were sent out of Hawai‘i to a private prison in Arizona, and how they…...
April 19, 2019
Stepping Up for Homeless Black People in Oakland
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Pendarvis Harshaw The Independent Lens documentary Charm City brings to mind the long list of urban American cities that fall into the same category as the Baltimore seen in…...
April 16, 2019
What “The Wire” Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore (and How “Charm City” Fills in the Rest)
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Lee Gardner Baltimoreans who venture beyond the I-695 beltway always know it’s coming. We meet someone from another city, or another country. They find out we’re from Baltimore, and…...
April 04, 2019
New Efforts to Improve Rural Healthcare Crisis
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Suzanne Gordon The three caregivers we meet in The Providers face daunting challenges as they try to deliver medical and mental healthcare to patients in rural New Mexico. Sadly,…...
April 01, 2019
A Day in the Life of a Rural Doctor, When No Day is the Same
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
Leslie Hayes knew she wanted to become a doctor from a very young age. She was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a community that hosts a national nuclear laboratory…...
March 25, 2019
How to Pronounce (and Not Pronounce) “Tre Maison Dasan”
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
One of the three "stars" of the documentary Tre Maison Dasan, Maison is a funny, charming, hyper-articulate 11-year-old whose Autism Spectrum Disorder presents itself through his ever-active mind and deep love for…...
March 25, 2019
Children Own Their Stories in Tre Maison Dasan
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Denali Tiller has been an artist, a teacher, a world traveler, and was named one of 110 “Filmmakers to Watch” by Variety, but Tre Maison Dasan happens to be her…...
February 20, 2019
Is This Real Life: The Live Streaming Craze Explained
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Siyi Chen When my dad, a small businessman from Southeast China, asked me, his social media-savvy daughter, how to utilize the internet to help sell his agricultural products, the…...
January 23, 2019
Elvis and the Death of the American Dream, Through Movies
Sean Axmaker in Beyond the Films
Elvis Presley is ostensibly the subject of The King, Eugene Jarecki's expansive road movie of a documentary. The award-winning director drives Presley's 1963 Rolls-Royce across the US, from Mississippi and…...