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 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…...
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.…...
February 15, 2023
Beyond Football: Pahokee, Florida’s History of Black Resilience
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
This community and the surrounding area around the southern shores of Lake Okeechobee, Florida, has a rich history, but the people of Pahokee's past has often been skipped over, even…...
November 07, 2022
“I Want to Move, I Want to Embrace Change”: Kelsey Peterson’s Journey to Dance Again
Independent Lens in Behind the Films
By Xian Horn Kelsey Peterson and I have had very different experiences of disability—I was born with cerebral palsy, and she became disabled as an adult. But watching her film…...
September 15, 2022
The Price of Hazing: A Personal Journey to Understand the Need to Belong
Craig Phillips in Behind the Films
Byron Hurt has made indelible films about the traditions of African American culinary traditions (Soul Food Junkies) and masculinity and misogyny in rap music with his daring doc Hip-Hop: Beyond…...
May 09, 2022
At Remote High School, Indigenous Teens Dream of a Glittering Future
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
South African-born, Utah-based documentarian Jared Jakins, currently the film curator at Granary Arts Center in Ephraim, Utah, is interested in stories of cultural intersection, and documenting communities and identities emerging…...
March 15, 2022
Oscar-Nominated “Writing With Fire” Goes Inside India’s Only All-Women Newspaper
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, co-directors, made a long journey metaphorically and literally with their film Writing With Fire, from northern India's Uttar Pradesh state, where they worked on the…...