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…...
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…...
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…...
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…...
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…...
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…...
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,…...
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…...
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…...
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…...
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…...
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…...