The first Mardi Gras in America was held in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. Three hundred and five years later, the city’s annual Carnival is split down the middle, with separate but not quite equal celebrations — one for whites and one for blacks. Read More
Tulia, Texas is the story of a small town’s search for justice and the price Americans pay for the nation’s war on drugs. Read More
Writ Writer tells the story of an indigent and under-educated Mexican American sentenced to prison in 1961, and his extraordinary legal battle against the violence and abuse of prisoners’ rights in the Texas prison system. Read More
Filmmaker Socheata Poeuv grew up in the United States never knowing that her family had survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. In New Year Baby, she embarks on a journey to Cambodia in search of the truth about her family's past. Read More
Follow the journey of legendary teacher Robert Cazimero and the only all-male hula school in Hawaii as they celebrate their 30th anniversary and prepare to compete at the world’s largest hula festival. Read More
Compañeras profiles America’s first all-female mariachi band, Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles, founded in 1994. Read More
From the 1860s to the 1920s, towns across the U.S. violently expelled African American residents. Today, these communities remain virtually all white. Banished exposes the hidden history of racial cleansing in America. Read More
Following pageant contestants in their quest for the Miss Navajo Nation crown, and featuring personal stories of recent winners, Miss Navajo is a unique celebration of womanhood. Read More
Take an in-depth look at masculinity in rap music and hip-hop culture — where creative genius, poetic beauty, and mad beats collide with misogyny, violence, and homophobia in this “loving critique” from filmmaker Byron Hurt. Read More
The composer of "Take the A-Train" and other Duke Ellington hits, Billy Strayhorn struggled with obscurity and prejudice as a successful gay man in the tumultuous middle of the 20th century. Read More
Four films — including the two grand prize-winners of the first Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival — explore questions of love, displacement, belonging, and identity. Short Stack 2006 looks at the rise and fall of a boy's first zit, uprooted sisters taking on a new school, revelations about a mourned father, and country-western romance, Japanese style. Read More
Adapted from Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, this dramatic short follows 13-year-old Lovey of Hilo, Hawaii, as she tries to be anything but herself. Read More