Blog

Assorted indian food on black background.. Indian cuisine. Shutterstock photo, By Tatjana Baibakova
Lifestyle

November 17, 2023

“Stinky Lunch Kids Strike Back”: South Asians Redefine What American Food Can Mean

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Bedatri D. Choudhury Journalist and chef Pervaiz Shallwani’s mother moved from Pakistan to Toronto, where she ate her first hot dog in 1975. “She thought it was the grossest…...

Beyond Utopia

They grew up believing their land was paradise. Now, they risk everything in escaping it. In an unforgettable documentary, follow families on a treacherous journey to defect from their homeland of North Korea, as the threat of severe punishment and possible execution looms over their passage, revealing a world many… Read More

Saleha Jabeen at Fort Sheridan Army Reserve Base, Illinois. From Three Chaplains.
Beyond the Films

November 06, 2023

The Complex Role and Diverse Array of Chaplains in the Military

Independent Lens in Beyond the Films

By Ivonne Spinoza When you hear the term chaplain, if you're not in the military, what usually comes to mind? It could be a pop culture reference, like Father Mulcahy…...

Young Sansón as played by young cousin Tonito, looking sadly across a table in Mexico
Interviews

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…...

Rodrigo Reyes recreating courtroom scene with him as interpreter for Sanson
Interviews

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,…...

Short Film “Folk Frontera” Shows the Culture of Life on the Border
Interviews

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…...

Sister Úna Lived a Good Death

Following a cancer diagnosis, Sister Úna—a mischievous, rule-breaking Catholic nun dedicated to social justice—chooses to live as she’s dying. In this touching end-of-life documentary, the self-proclaimed “leader of the misfits” plans her funeral in her last nine months to live. Read More

Racist Trees

Were trees intentionally planted to exclude and segregate a Black neighborhood? Racial tensions ignite in this documentary, when a historically Black neighborhood in Palm Springs, California, fights to remove a towering wall of tamarisk trees. The trees form a barrier, believed by some to segregate the community, frustrating residents who… Read More

Razing Liberty Square

Liberty City, Miami, was home to one of the oldest segregated public housing projects in the U.S. Now with rising sea levels, the neighborhood’s higher ground has become something else: real estate gold. Wealthy property owners push inland to higher ground, creating a speculators’ market in the historically Black neighborhood… Read More

The Tuba Thieves

Between 2011 and 2013, tubas were stolen from high schools across Southern California. Against this backdrop, hard of hearing filmmaker Alison O’Daniel generates new sensitivity to sound and meaning in an unconventional documentary experience. Read More

Breaking The News

Who decides which stories get told? A scrappy group of women and LGBTQ+ journalists buck the white male-dominated status quo, banding together to launch The 19th*, a digital news startup aiming to combat misinformation. A story of an America in flux, and the voices often left out of the narrative,… Read More