Blog

At the Kennedy Space Center, seven women who once aspired to fly into space stand outside Launch Pad 39B neat the Space Shuttle Discovery, poised for liftoff on the first flight of 1995. They are members of the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs, also known as the
Beyond the Films

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…...

J.O. Johnson High wrestling coach Chris Scribner works on the mat with two wrestling students
Beyond the Films

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…...

Vintage photos from the winemaking history of the Robledo family from their collection
Beyond the Films

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…...

Subject Hale Gualderama and other native Hawaiian religion members engaging in cultural practice.
Beyond the Films

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…...

Simons and Parham in Oakland
Beyond the Films

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…...

Kids in Rose Street, Baltimore, in Charm City
Beyond the Films

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…...

doctor takes a patient's blood pressure; image courtesy Rawpixel.com
Beyond the Films

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,…...

Dr Leslie Hayes, smiling at work in her office, in The Providers
Beyond the Films

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…...

Watch Video

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…...

Dasan and his mother out in the woods, from Tre Maison Dasan
Interviews

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…...

Live streaming star Shen Man at her computer during a live stream
Beyond the Films

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…...

Elvis Presley's Rolls-Royce parks in front of a row house, in The King
Lists

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…...