By Craig Phillips and Independent Lens Staff Real Boy is the portrait of Bennett, who is undergoing gender reassignment surgery, and his mom's struggle to process the change. But it's…...
There is no shortage of documentaries on war. The subject fascinates us as history, as sociology, and as drama. Some documentaries chronicle history in great detail, some grapple with the…...
In the early 2000s, Hollywood invested in the urban fairy tale where a teacher is called into the principal’s office of a school in a low-income, broken part of town…...
Defining what is taboo in comedy is the central question of The Last Laugh: What is out of bounds to talk about in comedy? The film features performers who are no strangers…...
“Somebody once said, ‘Tragedy plus time equals comedy.’ And I always felt, why wait?” - Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, in The Last Laugh There have been many films about the Holocaust,…...
In the Independent Lens documentary Ovarian Psycos, we're introduced to The Ovas — a chicanx (xicanx) feminist group who bike through the streets of East L.A. in honor of sisterhood. While…...
As Women’s History Month continues, we’re shining the spotlight on women activists who faced down injustice, pioneered paths for other women and girls, or have fought heroically trying to save…...
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…...
They Call Us Monsters goes behind the walls of the Compound, a high-security facility where Los Angeles houses its most violent juvenile criminals. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults. To their victims, they’re monsters. The film follows three young offenders who… Read More
Keith Maitland’s animated documentary TOWER has left critics and awards-voting bodies alike flummoxed as to how best to categorize it. This is a visionary work, no doubt, that uses voice-actors and…...
The thing about claiming territory and property is that it takes up space, and taking up space literally makes a huge statement; it becomes a platform for discussing who built…...
Pure and simple, 1966 was considered by many critics as one of the greatest years for popular music ever [see the Guardian’s “Was 1966 pop music greatest’s year?” and the…...