January 05, 2024
What Happens to Your Family When You Escape North Korea, and Other Harrowing Tales from Beyond Utopia
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
The harrowing, riveting documentary Beyond Utopia, captures what life is like for refugees after escaping North Korea. What happens to the family you left behind? How hard is it to…...
October 09, 2023
Forensic Anthropology Tools of the Trade
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Amy Whipple In 1992, forensic anthropologist Mercedes (Mimi) Doretti (pictured above, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the 1980s) traveled to El Salvador as part of a U.N.-sponsored team to…...
September 25, 2023
“Your Story Makes You Strong”: Sansón, an Incarcerated Man, Watches His Life as Documentary Reenactment
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
By Craig Phillips with Rodrigo Reyes and Sansón & Me team The life story of a young man serving life in prison for murder, Sansón and Me is told through…...
September 18, 2023
From Crimmigration Court Interpreter to Lifelong Friends
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Mexican American filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes was and still is a court interpreter in rural California. It was in that capacity that he met then 19-year-old Mexican migrant Sansón Noé Andrade,…...
September 15, 2023
Short Film “Folk Frontera” Shows the Culture of Life on the Border
Independent Lens in Behind the Films
By Ivonne Spinoza Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn’s Folk Frontera is a border-set tale, expertly portraying the beauty and heartbreak that comes with living on the U.S.-Mexico border. Connecting two…...
August 30, 2023
Feeding Our “Hungry Ghosts”: The Misunderstood Pain Behind Addiction
Independent Lens in Behind the Films
By Ivonne Spinoza Brother is an intimate portrayal of addiction that makes us question our preconceptions and helps shed light on what really goes on inside the mind of a…...
June 20, 2023
Free Mom Hugs: How Mama Bears Spread Radical Love
Independent Lens in Behind the Films
By Alex Stergiou [pullquote] "These women don't go from being conservative to allies because of other people. They go because they have skin in the game. They transform. Love is…...
May 04, 2023
Home Movies and Heartbreak: Brothers Bond Over Decades of Filmmaking
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
By Brian Darr Sam Now is filled with the unexpected twists and turns of a family undergoing great upheaval, filmed over the course of a quarter-century by one of its…...
April 27, 2023
“Laughter Is My Outlet”: How Michele Stellato is Living and Coping with ALS
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
After being diagnosed as a young woman with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), Michele “Shelly” Stellato said, "We had to decide what to do with the time we had left.” Part…...
April 18, 2023
What Happened to Chol Soo Lee?
Independent Lens in Behind the Films
By Bedatri D. Choudhury Chol Soo Lee was a Korean American immigrant wrongfully convicted in 1974 of murdering a Chinatown gang leader in San Francisco. After a decade of being…...
March 27, 2023
Telling the Story of Keeping the Secret Nüshu Language Alive
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
"Besides a well, one does not thirst. Besides a sister, one does not despair." — Nüshu poem Inspired by a bestselling book that featured Nüshu, filmmaker Violet Du Feng was…...
February 23, 2023
How Vancouver Finds Hope and Love Amid Fentanyl Crisis
Independent Lens in Behind the Films
By Ivonne Spinoza One of the more horrible legacies we are left with from the war on drugs is the lack of compassion toward those who struggle with addiction.…...