Independent Lens

  • :
  • : 534
  • : 24
  • PBS
  • 22
  • Documentary Drama

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12
12x1
The Parking Lot Movie
Episode overview
This documentary is about a singular parking lot in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the select group of parking lot attendants that inhabit its microcosm. The attendants are a uniquely .. show full overview
12x2
Art & Copy
Episode overview
A look at the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time - artists and writers who brought a rebellious spirit to their work in a business more .. show full overview
12x3
Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian
Episode overview
The portrayal of Native Americans in cinema. / Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond takes an entertaining, insightful, and often humorous look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of .. show full overview
12x4
The Longoria Affair
Episode overview
Private Felix Longoria fought and died while fighting the Japanese during World War II. When his body was sent back to his small hometown in Texas, the only funeral parlor there refused .. show full overview
12x5
Lost Sparrow
Episode overview
Filmmaker Chris Billing investigates the deaths of his adopted brothers, two Crow Indian boys who disappeared in 1978. / Some questions are never answered. Some answers are hard to take. .. show full overview
12x6
Deep Down
Episode overview
Beverly May and Terry Ratliff grew up on opposite sides of a mountain ridge in eastern Kentucky. When a mountaintop removal coal mine encroaches on their community, the two find .. show full overview
12x7
45365
Episode overview
An inquisitive look at everyday life in Middle America. "45365" explores the vagaries of daily life in an American town -- Sidney, Ohio. Through an intimate look at the lives and .. show full overview
12x8
The Calling, Part 1
Episode overview
This mini-series follows seven Muslims, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and Jews in training to become professional clergy. Embarking on life paths that demand tremendous personal .. show full overview
12x9
The Calling, Part 2
Episode overview
Muslim, Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Jewish seminarians embark on their life path in a secular and cynical era. A close look at how faith is lived today. / The conclusion of "The .. show full overview
12x10
Men Who Swim
Episode overview
A group of middle-aged men who have found unlikely success as members of Sweden's all-male synchronized swimming team. What begins as a weekly escape from the daily grind of work and .. show full overview
12x11
Children of Haiti
Episode overview
In the midst of Haiti's lush mountains and historical relics are 500,000 orphan children who live in the streets -- known as "the soulless" and forgotten by their own people. This .. show full overview
12x12
For Once in My Life
Episode overview
Made up of 28 musicians and singers with severe mental and physical disabilities, the Spirit of Goodwill Band is a raucous home away from home where members are free to display their .. show full overview
12x13
When I Rise
Episode overview
A profile of Barbara Smith Conrad, a gifted University of Texas music student, who finds herself at the epicenter of racial controversy, struggling against the odds and ultimately ascending to the heights of international opera.
12x14
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
Episode overview
An iconoclast who himself became an icon, William Burroughs explored the outer boundaries of culture and identity in the 1950s. His work was vilified by conservatives and banned by the .. show full overview
12x15
Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story
Episode overview
At the age of 16, Cyntoia Brown, who had suffered a long history of abuse, killed a man who picked her up for sex. The filmmaker has unprecedented access to Cyntioa in prison, and spends .. show full overview
12x16
Pushing the Elephant
Episode overview
Civil war came to Rose's Congolese village, with it the nighttime arrest of her entire family, the execution of her husband and grim negotiations with guards which led to her separation .. show full overview
12x17
The Desert of Forbidden Art
Episode overview
This story of how a treasure trove of banned Soviet art worth millions of dollars was stashed in a far-off desert of Uzbekistan develops into a larger exploration of how art survives in times of oppression.
12x18
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
Episode overview
In his short career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a phenomenon. Discovered in the late 1970s through his graffiti art on the Lower East Side, he sold his first painting to Deborah Harry for .. show full overview
12x19
Waste Land
Episode overview
Artist Vik Muniz journeys from to his home country of Brazil, and to Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest garbage dump located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There Muniz photographs .. show full overview
12x20
Marwencol
Episode overview
After being beaten into a coma, Mark Hogancamp is left brain damaged and traumatized. He devises his own brand of therapy by constructing a 1/6th-scale World War II-era town in his .. show full overview
12x21
A Film Unfinished
Episode overview
This haunting film about a film examines a classic Nazi propaganda movie used by historians for decades to provide insight into the realities of life in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. The .. show full overview
12x22
Bhutto
Episode overview
As the first Muslim woman to lead an Islamic nation, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto evolved from a pampered princess to a polarizing politician in one of the most .. show full overview
12x23
Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
Episode overview
Beginning in the modern day and working backward, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo explores the history of Japan's love affair with bugs. Using insects like an anthropologist's toolkit, the .. show full overview
12x24
Welcome to Shelbyville
Episode overview
Welcome to Shelbyville is a glimpse of America at a crossroads. In this one small town in the heart of America's Bible Belt, a community grapples with rapidly changing demographics. Just .. show full overview
12x25
Two Spirits
Episode overview
Fred Martinez was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at 16. Two Spirits explores the life and death of a boy who was also a girl, and the essentially spiritual nature of gender.

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