Blog

Yuji Okumoto as Shu Kai Kim, Robert Downey Jr. and James Woods standing in front of prison cell bars, in True Believer
Beyond the Films

May 26, 2023

From True Believer to The Help, How the White Gaze Has Shown Hollywood’s Shortsightedness

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

An Essay by Dana Verde [Sources and further reading listed at the end] They say hindsight is 20/20 and, historically, stories about real BIPOC characters in both mainstream film and…...

Signature image for sharing: John Lewis and many other civil rights protestors at the Edmund Pettis bridge at Selma, 1965. Black and White news photo in pub domain.
Lists

July 10, 2020

“Your Vote Is Your Voice”: Best Films About Voting Rights

Sharon Knolle in Film History

The right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights in a Democracy, and yet who has been allowed to vote in America has been a battle that’s been…...

Lynching scene in Within Our Gates (by Oscar Micheaux)
Beyond the Films

February 20, 2020

As American as the Blues: Lynching in Film and TV

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Ade Adeniji Always in Season explores the history of lynching through the mysterious 2014 death of Lennon Lacy while also looking at historical reenactments of lynching, prompting some to…...

Elle in full uniform in The Invisible War stands at the Vietnam War Memorial
Film History

March 09, 2017

Meet the Trailblazers of Documentary Activism

Sean Axmaker in Film History

We think of the cinema of activism in documentary filmmaking as a relatively modern phenomenon, something first awakened in the 1960s and 1970s and popularized by the likes of Michael…...

Still from Birth of a Movement, of DW Griffith on set directing a film with megaphone
Film History

February 01, 2017

The Offspring of Birth of a Nation

Sean Axmaker in Film History

D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation is inarguably one of the landmarks of American cinema. The distillation of the storytelling techniques, editing ideas, framing and visual composition, and nuanced…...

Poster from the film Almost There, rendering by the artist Arthur Jones of Peter Anton
Film History

October 27, 2016

Cats of Documentaries

Craig Phillips in Film History

"I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”—Filmmaker Jean Cocteau (Orpheus; Beauty and the Beast) International Cat Day is August 8…...

Filmmaker Shirley Clarke with slate and monitor
Film History

July 11, 2016

From Alice Guy-Blaché to Barbara Kopple: The Pioneering Women of Documentary Film

Maryann Johanson in Film History

When we talk about the early years of cinema, there is no separating “the history of women in film” from “the history of film.” Women have been there from the beginning,…...

From the film
Lists

May 27, 2016

Based on a True Story: 8 Documentaries that Inspired Feature Films

Sean Axmaker in Film History

True stories have been a prime inspiration for movies for as long as there have been movies. Early films recreated historical events and breaking news for eager audiences and films…...

Artwork from Jodorowsky's Dune
Film History

March 10, 2016

The Unmaking of: Stories of the Greatest Films Never Made

Sean Axmaker in Film History

The "making of" documentary has become a lively subgenre of nonfiction filmmaking, thanks in large part to the explosion of home video and the proliferation of cable channels in the…...

Irina Nistor watches a film being projected, for censorship review, in dramatic recreation scene from Chuck Norris vs. Communism
Lists

January 01, 2016

Nine Movies about the Power of Cinema

Noel Murray in Film History

In Ilinca Calugareanu’s documentary Chuck Norris vs. Communism, a handful of Romanians who endured the Cold War reminisce about congregating surreptitiously in cramped apartments to watch American action films on…...

From the Maysles Brothers' Gimme Shelter, when things turned ugly at Altamont during Rolling Stones' performance
Film History

December 15, 2015

Cinema Verite: The Movement of Truth

Sean Axmaker in Film History

This piece is part of an ongoing Independent Lens series exploring documentary film history. Check out the previous entry, Silent Real-Life Adventure Films, and stay tuned for more installments. The birth…...

Still frame from The Epic of Everest (1924), men exploring an ice cave on the mountain.
Film History

October 21, 2015

Early Silent Documentaries: Real-Life Adventure Cinema

Sean Axmaker in Film History

This piece is part of an ongoing Independent Lens series exploring documentary film history. Stay tuned for more installments. Since the dawn of cinema, cameras have been taken around the world to…...