Blog

Shadya

Shadya Zoabi, a charismatic 17-year-old karate world champion, strives to succeed on her own terms within her traditional Muslim village in northern Israel. Read More

Short Stack 2006

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

A Lion in the House

This inspiring, harrowing and intimate series follows five children as they fight against cancer with the help of their families, nurses, and doctors over a span of six years puts viewers in the shoes of those who struggle to defeat disease. Read More

Troop 1500

Their mothers may be convicted thieves, murderers, and drug dealers, but the Girl Scouts of Troop 1500 want to be doctors, social workers, and marine biologists. Read More

Girl Trouble

Shot over a period of four years, Girl Trouble documents the compelling personal stories of three teenage girls entangled in San Francisco's failing juvenile justice system. Read More

A Touch of Greatness

Weaving stunning archival footage together with interviews of former elementary schoolteacher Albert Cullum and his former students, this is a portrait of the lives transformed by a maverick teacher who enabled children to embrace their own inner greatness. Read More

Girl Wrestler

Texas teenager Tara Neal wrestles through the last year that state guidelines allow her to compete with boys, amid conflict and pressures from family and community. Read More

The Day My God Died

This unforgettable examination of the growing plague of sex slavery weaves footage from Bombay brothels with stories of young girls whose lives have been shattered by the child sex trade. Read More

Refugee

Three young Cambodian American men living in San Francisco return to the land of their roots wielding video cameras to document their experience of meeting fathers, sisters, and brothers for the first time. Read More

Why Can’t We Be a Family Again?

An Academy Award-nominated cinema vérité portrait of the bond that develops between two brothers who long to be reunited with their mother, who is waging an agonizing battle with crack addiction. Read More