June 16, 2017
Transgender People Trying to Find Love
826chi in Beyond the Films
In the Independent Lens film Real Boy, transgender nineteen-year-old Bennett is touched to find his reluctant mother by his side as he undergoes a double mastectomy as part of his…...
June 16, 2017
Real Boy Director Shaleece Haas on Filming a Family in Flux
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Documentary filmmaker Shaleece Haas has made several acclaimed shorts, worked as an editorial photographer and radio producer, and was a founding staff member of the national oral history project StoryCorps.…...
June 15, 2017
Real Boy Updates from Bennett, His Mom Suzy, Joe Stevens and Dylan
826chi in Where Are They Now?
After you see the film Real Boy [premiering on PBS June 19 at 10pm; check local listings], you may be interested to hear from the main players involved. We recently…...
June 09, 2017
Trans Musicians Carving Their Own Identities [Updated June 2022]
Independent Lens in Beyond the Films
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…...
May 17, 2017
Forever Pure: Updates on the Main Players
Independent Lens in Where Are They Now?
Check out this gallery of updates from the past year on all the main players featured in Forever Pure, from former owner Arcadi Gaydamak to players Zaur Sadayev, Dzhabrail Kadiyev,…...
May 11, 2017
Maya Zinshtein Explores How Soccer and Racism Intersected in Israel
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Israeli journalist-filmmaker Maya Zinshtein is in many ways the perfect person to make a film about the combustible story of Beitar Jerusalem FC, the Israeli soccer club which imploded when…...
April 20, 2017
Ferne Pearlstein Asks Comedians and Survivors: What Is Off-Limits in Comedy?
Craig Phillips in Interviews
“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,…...
March 23, 2017
Ovarian Psycos Filmmakers Follow the Ovas Bike Brigade in East L.A.
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Ovarian Psycos brought together filmmakers Joanna Sokolowski, who co-produced the Emmy® Award-winning HBO documentary Very Semi-Serious (2015), about New Yorker cartoonists, and Kate Trumbull-LaValle, an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker who first began…...
February 14, 2017
History or Hate: America’s Controversial Monuments to White Supremacy
826chi in Lists
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…...
February 10, 2017
Reformed Racists: Is There Life After Hate for Former White Supremacists?
Craig Phillips in Beyond the Films
Accidental Courtesy portrays African American musician Daryl Davis's attempt to change white supremacists by gradually shattering their prejudices with his friendship. It's a complicated, risky, and controversial pursuit, but Davis has succeeded in…...
February 09, 2017
Filmmaker Matt Ornstein Captures Daryl Davis’s Quest to Confront Racism, One Racist at a Time
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Filmmaker Matt Ornstein has a background in music videos and short films (one of which, Atlantis, was about that space shuttle's last launch and starred Jason Ritter), but the story…...
February 02, 2017
Filmmakers Tell Story of William Trotter’s Fight Against Racist Silent Blockbuster
Craig Phillips in Interviews
Birth of a Movement, based on Dick Lehr's book, captures the backdrop to a prescient clash between human rights, freedom of speech, and a changing media landscape — that happened in 1915.…...