ITVS: Program Catalog

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2007 Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival

Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens, the film festival in your living room, brings you the second annual film festival at your fingertips.

2007 Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival

Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens, the film festival in your living room, brings you the second annual film festival at your fingertips.

In four corners of the globe on four different days throughout the year, four violinists and a small ensemble of their musician friends come together to perform one of the most well loved pieces of music in the world; Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

74 Square Meters

A social experiment that moves marginalized families into a middle class neighborhood in Valparaiso, Chile.

9.11 Moments

Promoting understanding and compassion in our communities, these 34 minute-long spots capture heartfelt reactions to the September 11th tragedy.

ABC Colombia

Through the eyes of children, ABC Colombia explores the realities that nurture and perpetuate violence in a rural community controlled by paramilitary forces.

Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story

Abduction is the true story of a 13-year-old Japanese girl kidnapped by North Korean spies in 1977, and her parents's 30-year battle to bring her home.

Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation

Act of War examines the circumstances surrounding the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian sovereignty in 1893, Hawaii's subsequent U.S. annexation, and its impact from a native Hawaiian perspective.

Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene

The unlikely story of America's original shock-jock — Petey Greene — who battled the system and his own demons during a time of civil unrest in the nation's capital.

Adopt Me, Michael Jordan

Spanning four years in the life of one irrepressible girl, Adopt Me, Michael Jordan offers an intimate look at the struggle to create an identity in the aftermath of adoption across race and culture.

Afghanistan Unveiled

Filmed by the first-ever team of women video journalists trained in Afghanistan, this uncompromising film reveals the effects of the Taliban's repressive rule and U.S.-sponsored bombing campaign on Afghan women.

African School

A series that captures the daily lives, concerns and personalities of young Africans and their teachers in Masindi, Uganda.

After the Fall

Ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, After the Fall searches for traces of this monolith within the people who lived in its shadow.

Aimee's Crossing

A personal portrait of juvenile offender Aimee Myers that reveals how the Illinois justice system heals and supports troubled young women.

Alcatraz Is Not an Island

When a group of Native Americans reclaimed Alcatraz Island in 1969, their activism forever altered how Native Americans viewed themselves, their culture, and their rights.

Alive in Limbo

Being a teenager is hard — especially in a war zone. Alive in Limbo traces the lives of five Arab youth over 10 years, uncovering their ordinary adolescent obsessions, familiar dreams, and their attempts to live normal lives amidst the ruins of war around them.

Almost Home

Shot on location in a nursing home, Almost Home tells the real stories of aging: couples both bonded and divided by disability, children torn between caring for their parents and their children, nursing assistants doing unsavory work for poverty wages, healthy elders fearful of moving to the dreaded nursing home, and a visionary nursing home director committed to changes that would shuck the nursing home stigma and alleviate such dread.

The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out

In a small Illinois college town, a music student creates a lesbian/feminist choral group, transforming the community as she builds an award-winning ensemble.

American Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawaii

Few American icons are as well known for their popular kitsch as the hula dance. From old Hollywood movies to entertainment for tourists, the hip-swaying girls in grass skirts and colorful lei have long masked an ancient cultural tradition. Now, after years of being shadowed by stereotypes, the hula is experiencing a rebirth that celebrates Hawaiian culture across the American mainland.

An American Love Story

A true-life series about a black man and a white woman who have struggled for 30 years against racial stereotypes and societal prejudice to keep their family together.

American Made

AMERICAN MADE confronts issues of tradition, faith, conformity and sacrifice when a Sikh American family is stranded in the desert on their way to the Grand Canyon.

The Amish & Us

A documentary that examines the impact of the tourist industry on an Amish community in Pennsylvania.

Anatomy of a Springroll

One man's journey from the food-filled streets of San Francisco to Saigon, as he searches for the secret ingredient to blend the traditions of his family's culture with his adopted American life.

Ancestors in the Americas: Chinese in the Frontier West

The relationships between 19th century Chinese immigrants and the people and issues they encountered in America.

And Baby Makes Two

Single motherhood is no longer the exclusive province of teenagers; white middle class women in their 30s and 40s are now joining its ranks, forcing us to look anew at the nuclear family.

And Thou Shalt Honor...

This two-part series explores the increasing role caregiving for aging loved ones in the lives of all Americans, regardless of income, ethnic background, or geographic location.

An Angel in the Village

An Angel in the Village follows Lily Yeh's journey from young artist in China to international activist using art to transform destitute urban communities on two continents.

Animated Women

Four innovative animators — Faith Hubley, Joanna Priestley, Lynn Smith, and Ruth Peyser — are celebrated for their influential bodies of work.

Applewise

A portrait of one family's struggle to maintain one of only two remaining family-run apple orchards in Wise County, Virginia.

Archeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi

ARCHEOLOGY OF MEMORY: Villa Grimaldi follows exiled Chilean musician, Quique Cruz, from the Bay Area to Chile and back as he creates his masterwork.

The Art of the Hunt

Nqate is a hunter. His home is the Kalahari. His family depends on him. This is his story.

Arusi Persian Wedding

Iranian American filmmaker Marjan Tehrani chronicles her brother's return to Iran as he travels with his American wife to have a traditional Persian wedding and explore his lost heritage.

As Nutayunean — We Still Live Here

The Wampanoag nation of southeastern Massachusetts revives their native tongue, a language that was silenced for more than 100 years.

Ask Not

As wars rage in the Middle East, the U.S. military is eager for more recruits — unless they happen to be openly gay.

At Home in Utopia

New York City cops in the Great Depression called it Little Moscow, but for the 2,000 Jewish immigrant residents of the United Workers Cooperative Colony, a.k.a. “the Coops,” it was their first taste of the American dream. At Home in Utopia bears witness to an epic social experiment, following two generations of residents and their commitment to radical ideas of racial equality and rights for tenants and workers.

The Atom Smashers

After funding cut backs, Fermilab — a premier U.S. government research laboratory focusing on particle physics — is struggling to survive. Physics, politics and international competition collide as scientists race to find one of the most elusive sub-atomic particles ever theorized: the Higgs boson.

Aztec Massacre

A grisly discovery of more than 400 mutilated bodies in Mexico is turning history on its head. Aztec Massacre paints a new picture of the violent relations between the Aztecs and the Conquistadors and rewrites much of what we thought we knew about the Aztec civilization.

Baby Love

In blunt, provocative, and often humorous language, young mothers between the ages of 13 and 17, from various social, racial, and economic backgrounds, tell their own stories of what it means to be a teenage mother.

Baby, It's You

When 40-something filmmaker Anne Makepeace "can't get pregnant the fun way," she turns the camera on herself, her husband, and their idiosyncratic siblings and embarks on a tender and tumultuous journey through the complex maze of contemporary fertility science.

Backbone of the World: The Blackfeet

Filmed amid the beauty of the Rockies, Backbone of the World: The Blackfeet recounts the tale of the Badger-Two Medicine, the last Blackfeet sacred treaty land threatened by a government call for oil exploration.

Bad Voodoo's War

Director Deborah Scranton creates "a virtual embed" with a band of National Guard infantrymen supplying cameras to the soldiers so they can record and tell the story of their war.

Bananas

Juan “Accidentes” Dominguez is on his biggest case ever. On behalf of 12 Nicaraguan banana workers, he is tackling Dole Food in a groundbreaking legal battle for their use of a banned pesticide that was known by the company to cause sterility. Can he beat the giant, or will the corporation get away with it? In the suspenseful documentary Bananas!, filmmaker Fredrik Gertten sheds new light on the global politics of food.

Banished

From the 1860s to the 1920s, towns across the U.S. violently expelled African American residents. Today, these communities remain virtually all white. As black descendants return to demand justice, Banished exposes the hidden history of racial cleansing in America.

The Battle for Mono Lake

Thirty years of controversy, grassroots action, and unlikely alliances finally led to a way to protect a desert lake.

Be Good, My Children

A Korean American family's pursuit of the American dream is tested by its hard-working, religious mother and her two "employment-challenged" grown children.

Be Good, Smile Pretty

As one of the 20,000 Americans who lost their fathers in Vietnam, a daughter embarks on an intense, personal journey to reclaim the memory of her father, who died in the war when she was an infant.

Be Like Others

An intimate and unflinching look at life in Iran through the eyes of young men choosing to undergo sex change surgery, Be Like Others explores the implications and sacrifices of those living on the fringes of an Islamic society.

Beautiful Son

Through one family's struggle to save their child, Beautiful Son explores the complex and sometimes controversial world of autism.

Behind the Rainbow

With the 2009 presidential election ahead, Behind the Rainbow is an untold account of South Africa's political problems, struggles and realities.

Belarusian Waltz

In Belarus, Europe's last dictatorship, performance artist Alexander Pushkin uses his "patriotic" art to protest his government's policies and persecution.

Between the Folds

Between the Folds chronicles the stories of 10 fine artists and intrepid theoretical scientists who have abandoned careers and hard-earned graduate degrees — all to forge unconventional lives as modern-day paper-folders.

Beyond the Border - Más Allá de la Frontera

Beyond the Border - Más Allá de la Frontera traces the painful transition made by four sons in the Ayala family who leave their family in Mexico to seek "una vida mejor" (a better life) in Kentucky, where they fight cultural, class and language barriers.

Beyond the Call

In a Mother Teresa-meets-Indiana Jones adventure, three middle-aged friends and ex-soldiers travel the world delivering humanitarian aid to the front lines of war.

Beyond the Fire: Teen Experiences of War / An ITVS Interactive Project

BEYOND THE FIRE gives voice to teenage refugees of far-flung wars who now live in America, capturing the full impact of their experiences through Web-based, interactive storytelling.

Big Yellow Mama

An examination of how long-held myths about crime and the death penalty result in the disproportionate execution of minorities and the poor, raising questions about the fairness of capital punishment.

Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life

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.

Bird by Bird with Annie: A Portrait of Anne Lamott

A profile of bestselling author, humorist, recovering alcoholic, born-again Christian and single mother Anne Lamott.

Black Gold

Tracing one man's fight for a fair price, Black Gold is an eye-opening expose of the eighty billion dollar coffee industry.

Black Is ... Black Ain't

Marlon Riggs's final film explores questions of "blackness" and black identity.

Blacking Up: Hip-Hop's Remix of Race and Identity

As hip-hop music and culture continue to redefine American life, its influence exposes the high stakes of the struggle to cross or maintain the cultural divide.

Blessed Is the Match

Narrated by Joan Allen, Blessed Is the Match is the first documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Hannah joined a mission to rescue Jews in her native Hungary. Hannah parachuted behind enemy lines, was captured, tortured, and ultimately executed by the Nazis.

Blink

At the height of his leadership in the white supremacy movement, Gregory Withrow renounced the world of hate.

The Blinking Madonna & Other Miracles

Filmmaker Beth Harrington is sucked into a media vortex when she accidentally captures "the miracle of the Blinking Madonna" on video during an Italian American religious feast, leading her to explore myth and faith in the lives of American Catholic women, including herself.

The Bloody Child

A young Marine is found wandering the Mojave Desert, a woman's body in the trunk of his car; an outsider probes the inexplicable death.

Body and Soul: Diana and Kathy

Two determined women become advocates for all people with disabilities, and begin a grand experiment in living independent lives.

Body of Correspondence

A lifetime of letters between pen pals falls into the hands of a collector who plans to rewrite history — prompting the writers' ghosts to intervene.

Bolinao 52

A group of Vietnamese survivors of a tragic boat accident struggle to find peace years after the incident took place.

Bombies

When the United States dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laos from 1964 to 1973, millions of cluster bombs failed to explode, leaving the country massively contaminated with “bombies” — as dangerous now as when they fell.

Bontoc Eulogy

The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair included a live exhibit of tribesmen from what is now known as the Philippines; what happened to these people?

Born in the U.S.A.

A critical look at the birthing industry in America, and an exploration of shifting beliefs about women, technology and the perceived ability to control natural events.

The Boys of Baraka

A group of troubled boys in inner city Baltimore leave home to complete the 7th and 8th grade at the Baraka School, an experimental program located in rural Kenya, East Africa.

Bridge Over the Wadi

Bridge Over the Wadi follows a group of young Arab and Jewish children for one year as their grade school attempts a bi-national and bi-lingual program.

Brincando el Charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican

An experimental narrative that explores the definitions of Puerto Rican social, political, and sexual identities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

A Bronx Princess

Follow the journey of an American teenager who travels to Ghana, West Africa to reunite with her royal father.

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

Despite his achievements as a master strategist and tireless activist in the Civil Rights Movement, Bayard Rustin was silenced and imprisoned — largely because he was an openly gay man in a homophobic era.

Brother to Brother

Bruce Nugent, the black gay writer who co-founded the journal Fire!! with Langston Hughes and others, inspires a gay teenager through memories of the Harlem Renaissance.

Brothermen

A performance-based documentary, Brothermen features five African American men who through their art transmit the historic, political, and cultural realities of the African American experience.

Brown Is the New Green: George Lopez and the American Dream

Comedian George Lopez examines how American media and Hispanic marketing are shaping the contemporary Latino identity.

The Buffalo War

The Buffalo War examines the culture clash between Native Americans, ranchers, environmentalists, and government agents currently battling over the yearly slaughter of America's last wild bison.

The Burning Barrel

The Burning Barrel explores the personal costs of consumerism in the rise and fall of a small rural community.

Butte, America

Told through the experiences of five-generation families whose lives intersected key historical events, BUTTE, AMERICA explores the largely untold story of industrialized hard rock mining in Butte, Montana.

By Invitation Only

New Orleans filmmaker Rebecca Snedeker gives an unprecedented look at the secrets and inner workings of the old-line Carnival societies and debutante balls of Mardi Gras.

California and the American Dream

Exploring the dynamics of culture, community, and identity in one of the world’s most diverse regions, the four-part series California and the American Dream reveals how the last 35 years of divergent social trends have changed the state’s Hollywood dreamscape image of the past.

The Calling

A behind-the-scenes look at a group of young Americans — Christian, Jewish, Catholic, and Muslim — preparing to become America's next generation of religious leaders.

Camp Victory, Afghanistan

Camp Victory, Afghanistan follows several soldiers — Afghan and American — across the divide of language, culture, and religion as they attempt to accomplish a near impossible task: crafting a modern army to serve a struggling nation.

Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?

Follow the 2004 Missouri Democratic primary to replace retiring former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt from inside the campaign of Jeff Smith, a 29-year-old part time political science teacher.

The Carmelita Tropicana Story

The Carmelita Tropicana Story is an experimental narrative that explores the bicultural and bilingual experiences of Latinos and Latinas living in New York.

Cash & Marry

Cash & Marry takes look into the lives of young men from the Balkans who seek out wives in order to obtain an Austrian passport.a

Casino Nation

A snapshot of the struggle of the Seneca Nation of Indians to maintain its culture and identity after entering into the world of big-time casino gambling.

Catherine's Story

Catherine is reading Kate Chopin's short story, when Chopin's fictional heroine appears in the flesh to help Catherine struggle against an abusive husband.

The Cats of Mirikitani

When 9/11 threatens 80-year-old Jimmy Mirikitani's life on the streets of New York, the artist begins to confront his painful past and finds hope, humanity, and home.

Caught in the Crossfire - Arab Americans in Wartime

Caught in the Crossfire follows the lives of three Arab American New Yorkers after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The Caviar Connection

A fishing roulette about the Rat brothers, cats, dogs, and caviar.

Cayutaville

In a rural New York community — where peace and beauty are an illusions — two families make sense of the tragedies they face.

Chahinaz: What Rights for Women?

Through her curiosity and self-discovery, Chahinaz, a 20-year-old Algerian student, begins to wonder what life is like for women in other Muslim countries and around the world.

Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story

Don Normark's haunting photographs evoke a lost Mexican-American village in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, razed in the 1950s to build Dodger Stadium.

Chicago 10

Mixing animation and archival footage, Director Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10 explores the buildup to and unraveling of the protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the 1969 conspiracy trial that followed.

Chiefs

An observational documentary about the on- and off-court struggles of Native American basketball players at Wyoming Indian High School.

Children of the Amazon

This inspiring story of struggle and resilience reveals how we are all “children of the Amazon,” breathing the same air and sharing the same fate.

Children of the Sun

Tracing Israel’s kibbutz movement, Children of the Sun follows members of the Zionist elite from their birth in the 1920s and 1930s to the crisis that weakened the movement

China

When a sick, elderly man zealously takes up martial arts, his marriage is put to the test in this surprising drama of love challenged and renewed.

China 21

A portrait of a new generation raised under China's “One Child Policy.”

China Blue

Jasmine left her village in a remote part of China to get a job and help her family. Now she and her teenage friends at the blue jean factory are trying to survive in a brutal work environment.

Chinese School

Spend a year at a small town school in rural Anhui, China, where a group of families, teachers and children reveal stories of hardship, joy, and success.

Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed

In 1972, black congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination, launching a groundbreaking campaign that united an unlikely coalition of supporters from every walk of life.

Chronicle of a Disappearance

A comic drama that investigates the spiritual effect of occupation and instability on the Palestinian people.

Circle of Stories / An ITVS Interactive Project

With Native culture bearers as guides, this web-original interactive experience explores the art, culture and legacy of the Native American oral tradition. CIRCLE OF STORIES is an Electric Shadows Project presented by ITVS Interactive.

Circo (Circus)

Living and performing on the road since the 19th century, the hardscrabble Ponce family circus struggles to preserve their art and way of life against the backdrop of Mexico's collapsing rural economy.

Circus School

Take a rare look into one of China's most treasured commodities — acrobats. Circus School reveals the rigorous physical training students must endure as they prepare for a national competition.

The City (La Ciudad)

Eliciting hope, The City (La Ciudad) is the narrative story of Latin American immigrants seeking community in a large, impersonal city.

City of Borders

In the heart of Jerusalem, people of all nationalities, religious affiliations, and sexual orientations gather and find peace in an unlikely place: a gay bar.

Claiming Open Spaces

Claiming Open Spaces explores African-American culture as it clashes with the design of the modern American city. The film includes a comprehensive section on New Orleans — the vital place of historical significance that this city holds, and its role in continuing African American tradition and culture. The film is both a critical examination of the design and histories of American urban open space, as well as a celebration of leisure, recreation, and resistance.

A Class Apart

A Class Apart brings to life the heroic struggle of Mexican Americans from Texas to dismantle the discrimination targeted against them.

Coal Bucket Outlaw

Built around one day in the life of a Kentucky coal truck driver, Coal Bucket Outlaw offers a startling glimpse into the lives of working people who haul the nation's fuel.

Colorvision

A multicultural series showcasing the best short films and videos illustrating cultural diversity.

Come and Take It Day

In this drama, it’s the annual “Come and Take It Day” celebration in rural Gonzales, Texas, where revenge and double-cross erupts when four urban Tejanos go after the fabled buried treasure of Gregorio Cortez.

Coming Out Under Fire

Gay and lesbian soldiers in World War II found themselves fighting two wars: one for their country; the other as targets of military policy.

Companeras

Compañeras profiles America’s first all-female mariachi band, Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles, founded in 1994.

Conscience and the Constitution

In 1944, 85 Japanese American prisoners in an American internment camp were prosecuted as criminals when they refused the draft.

The Cool School

From 1957 to 1966, the Ferus Gallery was the catalyst of modern art in Los Angeles. Launching the careers of luminaries like Warhol, Ruscha and Lichtenstein, Ferus built an art scene from scratch and transformed the cultural climate of the West Coast.

Copyright Criminals

Can you own a sound? Copyright Criminals examines the history and influence of musical sampling, provoking debates about copyright, compensation, and creativity in the age of intellectual property.

Correction

Contrasting real-life prison experiences with the training that correctional officers receive, this investigative film exposes how both officers and inmates are trapped in a deeply flawed system.

Cosmopolitan

Starring Carol Kane and Roshan Seth, this romantic comedy tells the story of an East Indian immigrant who turns to pop culture as he tries to reinvent his life and woo the girl next door.

Counting on Democracy

Uncovering racial exclusion, voting rights violations and the subversion of a recount in the most contested and controversial election in U.S. history, Counting on Democracy investigates the disenfranchisement of voters in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election.

Country Boys

Country Boys is a universal coming-of-age story told through the eyes of Chris and Cody, two teenage boys struggling to find meaning and direction as they grow up in one of America’s poorest regions.

Cowboys in India

Aided by two inept locals, director Simon Chambers goes to the poorest area in India where a tribe is fighting to save a sacred mountain from multinational mining moguls who say its resources will bring prosperity to the people.

Cowboys, Indians, and Lawyers

A Western community fights over a massive dam proposed to serve Indian-owned, coal-fired power plants, providing an intimate portrait of American pork barrel politics and Anglo-Indian relations.

The Cracker Man

An offbeat drama of a life deferred: a woman struggles with duty, flirts with possibility, and ultimately survives catastrophic change.

Craft in America

This three-part series explores the history and significance of the craft movement in America and its impact on our nation’s rich cultural heritage.

Crank: Darkness on the Edge of Town

Crank is an anatomy of one Tennessee town’s waking nightmare and a nation’s struggle against methamphetamine addiction.

The Creek Runs Red

The Environmental Protection Agency calls the former lead mining town of Picher, Oklahoma one of the most toxic places in America, but a dwindling population still calls it home. The Creek Runs Red explores the human response to environmental disaster, and the complex connections between people and place.

Crips and Bloods: Made in America

It’s a civil war that’s lasted 40 years. Passed down from son to son. Fought eye for an eye. More than 15,000 dead and counting, while the world stands by. Welcome to South Central Los Angeles.

Cuba, an African Odyssey

The previously untold story of Cuba’s support for African revolutions, Cuba, an African Odyssey reveals one of the Cold War’s most vigorous contests over resources and ideology.

D Tour

Refusing to let a failing kidney deter him, indie rock drummer Pat Spurgeon goes on tour with his band while searching for a donor and administering his own dialysis.

Daddy & Papa

Exploring the growing phenomenon of gay fatherhood through the stories of four families, Daddy & Papa looks at gay fathers who face both the routine and revolutionary challenges of becoming parents.

Dancing with Photons

Nuclear scientist and Navajo native Dr. Fred Begay blends seemingly contrary beliefs — traditional Navajo world order and nuclear physics.

Daughter from Danang

A Vietnamese mother and her Amerasian daughter are joyously reunited after 22 years, but their illusions are quickly shattered when the reality of cultural differences and years of separation sets in.

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.

A Day's Work, a Day's Pay

A Day’s Work, a Day’s Pay, a one hour long video documentary, following three people on public assistance fighting for a just and effective welfare-to-work system.

Deaf Jam

A group of New York City deaf teens reveal their passions, frustrations and senses of humor as they discover American Sign Language poetry — eventually stepping into the world of the youth poetry slams with their hearing peers.

Death by Design

Death by Design presents the phenomenon of programmed cell death as a metaphor for life and loss.

Death of a Shaman

Through a journey that takes her back to her roots in Thailand, a second-generation Mien American woman strives to come to terms with her late father’s death, his drug addiction, and the murder of her sister.

Declarations: Essays on American Ideals

A provocative discussion of America’s societal values with commentary by Jeane Kirkpatrick, Timothy Leary, Salman Rushdie, Molly Ivins, Arianna Huffington, Angela Davis, Jack Kemp, and others.

Deep Down

Deep in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky, Beverly May and Terry Ratliff find themselves at the center of a contentious community battle over a proposed mountaintop removal coal mine.

Deep Water

The compelling story of the fateful voyage of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur yachtsman who entered the most daring nautical challenge ever — the very first solo, non-stop, round-the-world boat race.

Delafield

The farm community around a 125-year-old rural church is dying. Church members decide to sacrifice their church as the responsible thing to do.

Democracy on Deadline: The Global Struggle for an Independent Press

Democracy on Deadline shadows courageous journalists and champions of independent media as they work to make, and keep, their societies free.

The Democratic Promise: Saul Alinsky & His Legacy

An examination of legendary community organizer Saul Alinsky’s life and legacy through the work being done by contemporary “people’s organizations.”

The Devil Never Sleeps

The Devil Never Sleeps is a “whodunit” documentary about family secrets. Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo travels to Mexico to learn the truth about her wealthy uncle’s death.

The Devil's Miner

Living in poverty with their mother in the mountains of Bolivia, 14-year-old Basilio and his 12-year-old brother, Bernardino, work long shifts in the Cerro Rico silver mines, braving deadly conditions to earn enough money to attend school.

Diary of a City Priest

Diary of a City Priest is based on the journals of Father John McNamee, a spiritual guide, poet, and seer of many worlds past and present.

The Dictator Hunter

An American lawyer and son of a Holocaust survivor along with a Chadian survivor work in a fight against all odds to bring brutal dictator Hissène Habré, to justice.

Digital Divide

This series examines the role technology plays in deepening societal divisions based on race, gender and class, and how the lack of access to computers threatens to widen these gaps.

Dinka Diaries

Five Sudanese refugee orphans resettled near Philadelphia use digital cameras to tell their experiences adjusting to American culture and a new way of life.

Dinner with the President: A Nation's Journey

Directors Sabiha Sumar and Sachithanandam Sathananthan sit down with former President Pervez Musharraf, before he resigns from office, to address the army general’s plans to establish democracy in Pakistan.

Dirt! The Movie

Industrial farming, mining and urban development have endangered soil and resulted in cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods and climate change. How can humans reconnect to dirt — the living skin of the Earth?

Discovering Dominga

A young mother living in Iowa discovers she is a survivor of one of the most egregious massacres in Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, forcing her to confront her identity and the truth about her past.

Doc

The amazing adventures of novelist and Paris Review founder Harold Louis “Doc” Humes — featuring a paper house, the Hip Messiah, Don Peyote, Leary, Mailer, Auster, and the FBI. A story about ideas, drugs, literature, protest, and paranoia, that sheds light on American cultural history as well as an original mind.

Doki-Doki

In suburban Tokyo, Yumi waits with the same strangers for the same train every day, until she decides to find out more about her fellow commuters.

Doping for Gold

In the 1970s, female East German athletes came from nowhere to dominate international sport. But behind their success lay a horrifying secret. Doping for Gold reveals the truth behind the biggest state-sponsored doping program the world has ever known, creating a timely perspective on today’s many sports drug scandals.

Dottie Gets Spanked

In one of his early short films — and the only one made for TV — writer/director Todd Haynes tells the post-war suburban tale of a boy whose obsession with an I Love Lucy-esque television comedienne exacerbates his social status as a “feminino,” and his father’s disgust at his “sissified” ways.

Double Dare

Follow the Hollywood stuntwomen who doubled for Wonder Woman and Xena: Warrior Princess as they struggle to stay employed, stay thin and stay sane in this notoriously macho profession.

Double Exposure

An artist and self-proclaimed “old Chinese lady” sets out to explore her own identity and prove it’s never too late to take a risk by making her first film at the age of 68.

Downpour Resurfacing

Blending experimental images with an intimate interview with therapist Robert Hall, this short film chronicles how one man transformed a childhood of abuse into a life of confidence and strength.

Downside Up

Downside Up tells the story of how a blue-collar town in rural Massachusetts reinvented itself in the post-industrial economy by opening the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

A Dream in Doubt

In the wake of 9/11 and the hate crimes that followed, a Sikh American struggles to believe in the American dream amidst a climate of xenophobia and fear.

Dreams on Fire

A youth intervention program at the Los Angeles Fire Department is influencing hundreds of lives.

Dude Ranch Days

The 100-year history of the western dude ranch is told through interviews with ranchers, wranglers, and dudes.

The Education of Shelby Knox

When Texas teenager Shelby Knox joins a youth group on a campaign for better sex education in high schools, she begins to question her deeply conservative Southern Baptist upbringing.

Egalité for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution

The story of history’s only successful slave insurrection and the man who lead it.

El Doctor

In this dark animated comedy, set in Mexico in 1945, an irascible old doctor finds new perspective in a series of wildly imaginative visions.

El General

Filmmaker Natalia Almada brings to life audio recordings she inherited about her great-grandfather, General Plutarco Elías Calles, a revolutionary general who became president of Mexico in 1924.

Election Day

Election Day follows a dozen American citizens over the course of 24 hours on November 2, 2004. Uplifting yet troubling, their experiences offer rare insight into a hallowed American ritual.

En Route to Baghdad

En Route to Baghdad is a portrait of the peacekeeping career of former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello, whose death in a 2003 Baghdad bombing attack became a tragic metaphor for the effort to bring stability to Iraq.

End of the Century: The Ramones

End of the Century follows punk progenitors The Ramones through more than two decades of touring, recording, and bickering.

End of the Rainbow

END OF THE RAINBOW explores the human dimensions of industrial gold-mining in two remote locations: Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo and Guinea, West Africa.

End of Waiting Time

During the long dictatorship of Spanish General Francisco Franco, hundreds of people were arrested, executed or disappeared. Today, the families of those who vanished have begun to search for answers about their relatives.

Enemies of War

An investigation of the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, Enemies of War unravels the political corruption embedded in El Salvador's civil war.

The English Surgeon

A British neurosurgeon confronts the dilemmas of the doctor-patient relationship on his latest mission to Ukraine.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

An Academy Award-nominated study of one of the biggest business scandals in American history, this film chronicles a corporate disaster in which executives walked away with over $1 billion, leaving investors and employees with nothing.

Epiphany in Progress

A look at the tumultuous first year of an experimental middle school of low-income, ethnically diverse students in inner-city Boston.

Eroica!

Meet the world-class chamber ensemble the Eroica Trio as they navigate longtime friendships, work, home, and the pressure leading up to the premiere of a new symphony.

Escape from Affluenza: Living Better on Less

A sequel to Affluenza, a documentary which introduced Americans to the national epidemic of rampant consumerism and materialism.

Escape from Auschwitz

The story of two young Slovak Jews who managed to escape and help save as many as 120,000 Jews by sharing their detailed account of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Estilo Hip Hop

Estilo Hip Hop chronicles the lives of three hip-hop enthusiasts from Brazil, Chile, and Cuba who firmly believe that hip hop can change the world.

Every Child Is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Piri Thomas

Every Child is Born a Poet is a multimedia chronicle of Nuyorican author Piri Thomas’s transformation from gang member and prison convict to acclaimed writer, activist, and educator.

Every Mother's Son

The story of three women from vastly different backgrounds who unite to protest the deaths of their sons, all of whom died suspiciously in the custody of the NYPD.

The Eyes of Me

How do you see yourself, when you can’t see at all? Follow four visually impaired teenagers in Texas as they face the usual challenges of adolescence while simultaneously learning to navigate a world designed for the sighted.

Face to Face / An ITVS Interactive Project

An interactive web-original experience that connects the experiences of Japanese Americans in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor with those confronting Arab and Muslim Americans today.

Facing the Storm

Facing the Storm tells the rich history of the bison, an American icon of the wild with deep ties to native peoples, which is struggling today to reestablish itself in the Great Plains.

Fair Play

A troupe of actors — most with learning disabilities — confront the challenges of being different, while rehearsing The Choice, an acclaimed play about abortion.

Fallon, NV: Deadly Oasis

Residents of a quiet ranching community and “Top Gun” naval air base struggle to discover why the children of their town are diagnosed with leukemia at 44 times the national average.

A Family at War

A Family at War follows one American family over the course of a year after their son’s combat death in Iraq, tracing their changing attitudes and views on the military and global politics.

Family Remains

A mother and daughter are marooned in a sleepy community 10 years after the disappearance of the girl’s father in this film by Tamara Jenkins.

A Family Undertaking

Examining the home funeral, a growing new trend in America’s approach to death, this documentary looks at the range of complex psychological, legal, and financial issues that surround funerary services and probes America’s collective attitudes toward life’s only inevitability.

The Farmer's Wife

A landmark portrait of three tumultuous years in the life of a Nebraska farm couple, chronicling three years of their struggle to save their farm and their marriage.

Farmingville

The shocking hate-based attempted murders of two Mexican day laborers catapult a small Long Island town into national headlines, unmasking a new front line in the border wars: suburbia.

Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins

Father Roy Bourgeois, a Vietnam veteran and Jesuit priest, has dedicated his life to shutting down the School of the America’s at Fort Benning in Georgia. He exposed crucial evidence that the school was secretly training Central American military personnel to torture and murder civilian opponents of the United States’ policies in the region.

Fatworld / An ITVS Interactive Project

Get fat, stay healthy, or die -- it's all up to you in FATWORLD. An Electric Shadows / ITVS Interactive Project.

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

Nestled at the edge of New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter, Faubourg Tremé is one of America’s oldest African American neighborhoods: it is also the origin of the civil rights movement in the South, and the birthplace of jazz.

February One: The Story of the Greensboro Four

One day at a Woolworth lunch counter, four young men changed the course of history.

Fenceline: A Company Town Divided

The social divisions in Norco, Louisiana — a company town in the middle of the Mississippi River’s notorious “cancer alley” — are literally black and white.

Fender Philosophers

The bumper sticker is the status update of the highway: a means of identifying oneself by association with political philosophies, religious beliefs, or even dirty jokes. This film explores America’s love affair with the bumper sticker.

The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers' Struggle

This is the story of the United Farmworkers Union (UFW) and its leader Cesar Chavez, who inspired Latino activism of the ’60s and ’70s, and involved millions in a nonviolent struggle for social justice.

The Fighting Spirit

Three young boxers from Bukom, Ghana try to navigate the glittering prizefighting rings of Europe and North America through triumph and defeat.

Figures of Speech

Figures of Speech is a collection of regular people telling personal stories, while the film is overlain with transmogrifying graphics manipulated by a different artist.

Fine.

When factory worker Ed is confronted by a co-worker's pressing question over lunch, he begins to question the trajectory of his own life.

The Fire Next Time

Against the dramatic backdrop of Northwest Montana, The Fire Next Time profiles a rapidly growing community caught in a web of intolerance and conflict.

First Australians

This epic story combines landscapes, interviews, art and archival footage to present the birth of contemporary Australia from the perspectives of its first peoples.

First Face: The Story of Washington's Image

George Washington visited the home of artist Gilbert Stuart to sit for what is considered one of the most famous portraits ever created — Washington’s stoic image on the one dollar bill.

First Person Plural

In 1966, Deann Borshay Liem was adopted by an American family and was sent from Korea to her new home. Growing up in California, the memory of her birth family was nearly obliterated until recurring dreams lead Borshay Liem to discover the truth: her Korean mother was very much alive.

First Surface

What if, at 12 years old, you could remember being an old man?

First World Order

Combining vérité video of arts and cultural practices, interviews, and computer-aided animation, First World Order lluminates the relationships between culturally and ethnically distinct and disparate Africans around the world.

A Fish Story

A Fish Story is a tale of two women who lead their communities in a battle against a coalition of national environmental groups for control of the ocean. Three hundred years of fishing tradition and the health of the ocean hang in the balance.

Fishbowl

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.

Flag Wars

What happens when gay white people move into a black working-class neighborhood? This up-close look at gentrification leads viewers on a journey into a divided community.

Flipping Out

Israel is struggling to deal with about 2,000 former soldiers every year who abuse hallucinogenic drugs until they become psychotic.

The Flute Player

The heart-wrenching journey of a survivor of Cambodia’s killing fields, and his work to heal himself and his country through music.

For Better or for Worse

They still find romance in the most unexpected places and they still argue about the smallest things. Five couples, still together after more than 50 years, have a few choice words for a divorce-prone generation.

For God, Tsar and Fatherland

Russian nationalism percolates in a castle outside Moscow, where Mikhail Morozov — who longs for a return to the glory days of Old Russia — rules autonomously over young initiates, laying the groundwork for a rapidly growing right-wing movement.

For the Record: Guam in WWII

A drama about the 30-year-old Chamorro priest in Guam who defied Japanese rule during WWII by refusing to disclose the whereabouts of an American radioman.

Forgotten Fires

When two young men burn down two historic black churches in rural South Carolina, the community is forced to confront the true state of race relations in the post-civil rights South.

Foto-Novelas

Using fantastic elements from the Mexican and Latin American comic book tradition, everyday reality is woven with magical realism into four original half-hour dramas.

Foto-Novelas 2: "Junkyard Saints" and "Broken Sky"

Exploring the Latino experience through the prism of dreams, memories, and reality, Foto-Novelas 2 consists of two half-hour dramas: “Junkyard Saints” and “Broken Sky.”

Freedom Machines

For the 54 million Americans with disabilities, modern technology offers unprecedented possibilities in the face of conflicting social policies and lingering discrimination.

Fresh Kill

A cyberpunk narrative set in a post-apocalyptic, not-too-distant future where cats glow in the dark, fish lip sushi is the rage, and an eco-terrorist crisis is imminent.

From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale

A former symbol of urban decay, the South Bronx is also known as a creative breeding ground and for its enduring cultural spirit.

From Swastika to Jim Crow

From Swastika to Jim Crow traces the story of Jewish intellectuals who escaped Nazi Germany only to find anti-Semitism at major U.S. universities. Many secured positions at black colleges in the South, and ultimately impacted the civil rights movement.

Front Wards, Back Wards

Fernald State School, America’s first institution for individuals with developmental disabilities, was founded in Massachusetts in 1848 and still operates today. It stands as a powerful case study of an endeavor in which the best of intentions go awry.

Frontierland / Frontierlandia

A look at the convergence of Mexican and American cultures where least expected — in Vancouver’s Chinatown, and in the homes of European collectors of pre-Columbian art.

Frontiers of Dreams and Fears

Two girls living in refugee camps in Beirut and Bethlehem share the feelings and hopes of a new generation of young Palestinians.

Frozen Angels

Using dreamlike cinematography and personal stories, Frozen Angels presents the future of human reproduction, available now in Los Angeles.

Garbage Dreams

The world’s largest garbage village is just outside Cairo. The Zabaleen (Arabic for “garbage people”) recycle 80 percent of the trash they collect, but now multinational corporations threaten their livelihood.

Garbage Warrior

Garbage Warrior tells the story of maverick architect Michael Reynolds, his crew of renegade house builders from New Mexico, and their fight to introduce radically different ways of living.

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes

Spend a year with Garrison Keillor, host of “A Prairie Home Companion,” as he takes his live radio show to large and small towns across the country, bringing wit, commentary, and his unique take on America.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace

The inner workings of the Tiananmen Square massacre and its aftermath.

Get the Fire! Young Mormon Missionaries Abroad

Three young Mormon men, age 19, embark on a two-year rite of passage in Germany as part of a long-standing worldwide effort by Mormon missionaries to spread their faith at home and abroad.

Ghetto

From Director Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) comes an unflinching look at how the War on Drugs has disproportionately disenfranchised, incarcerated, and impoverished African Americans.

Ghost Story

A tenement apartment becomes home to past and present generations of a Chinese immigrant family in this brief meditation on time, memory, and change.

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.

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.

A Girl's Life

An exploration into the obstacles girls face during their adolescent years.

Girls Like Us

A disarming look into the lives of teenage girls, working to shape their identities in the ’90s.

Girls on the Wall

A group of incarcerated teenage girls are given a shot at redemption in a most unlikely form: a musical.

Girls' Hoops

Through accounts of women aged 14 to 94, Girls’ Hoops examines girls’s high school basketball programs in the basketball-obsessed state of Kentucky.

Give Up Tomorrow

When a teenager from a political family in the Philippines is accused of double murder, the country’s judicial system is put to the test after years of alleged corruption.

God Willing

An exploration of an American religious sect known as "The Church" whose leader preaches a strict path to salvation and the efforts by some family members to extricate loved ones from it.

Going on 13

A brave and unflinching look into the face of modern-day puberty, Going on 13 follows four urban girls of color over the span of four years.

Golden Threads

Profiling the life of lesbian activist Christine Burton, Golden Threads is about growing old in America.

Gone to Texas: The Lives of Forrest Carter

A journey through the life of Forrest Carter, author of The Education of Little Tree, a memoir about his life as a Cherokee orphan, who was later revealed to be a white supremacist.

The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It

The story of the conscientious objectors who refused to fight in World War II, and prepared a generation of nonviolent activists who later changed American society.

Goodbye Solo

Solo, a Senegalese taxi driver, is hired by an elderly Caucasian man to drive him in two weeks time to a mountaintop in North Carolina where he plans to commit suicide.

Granny D Goes to Washington

What happens when an 89-year-old idealist decides to walk across the country to demand that Washington lawmakers clean up their act?

The Great American Foot Race

The story of Andy Payne, a Cherokee who won the Great American Foot Race in 1928, reveals an ordinary young man who triumphed not because of mystical power, but because he believed in himself.

The Great Pink Scare

The little-known 1960 felony conviction of three gay Smith College professors marked the peak of sexual McCarthyism, pitting an individual’s right to privacy against national security claims.

Great Wall Across the Yangtze

In the heart of China engineers are constructing the world’s largest dam across the legendary Yangtze River. Critics fear the dam will be a social and environmental disaster.

Greener Grass: Cuba, Baseball and the United States

Set against the backdrop of choppy U.S.-Cuban relations, Greener Grass documents how both countries have used baseball as a political tool, and how the sport has operated as both bridge and barrier between the two lands.

Greetings from Out Here

This tongue-in-cheek and pedal-to-the-metal on-the-road journey through the backroads of the South documents gay life in the boonies and beyond.

Gregory Kondos: A Passion for the Land

This biographical film paints a portrait of Gregory Kondos, a landscape painter whose work has been described as “painterly realism.” The story of an American artist whose work helped define the post-World War II era, and a landscape arts school in California he influenced.

Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway

How did two women living in unimaginable squalor and total isolation become legendary icons? And how did their gothic story end up as, of all things, a Broadway musical?

Guide Season

In this drama set in rural Montana, a hunting guide must reconcile his life with the changing social attitudes that threaten to render his work obsolete or even immoral.

Guns & Mothers

Two mothers with opposing views on gun control expand the contentious debate to include women who fall on both sides of a historically male-dominated issue.

Gypsy Caravan: When the Road Bends

A rare and dazzling look inside the world of top Romani performers, who transcend social isolation and community poverty through their music.

Hand Changes

An investigation of the cyclic social, economic and political changes influencing farm labor on Virginia's eastern shore for 400 years.

Hansel Mieth: Vagabond Photographer

A look at the life of one of America’s great women photographers, one of the first staff photographers at LIFE magazine, whose Depression-era photos and commitment to social justice inspired concerned artists everywhere.

Harambee!

A family drama set in the housing projects of Brooklyn during the African American celebration Kwanzaa, starring Howard Rollins.

Hard Road Home

Hard Road Home follows two former felons in different stages of life on the outside.

A Hard Straight

A gang member, a hustler, and a small-time dealer discover that walking out the prison gates is just the beginning in this intimate film on the experience of doing time and trying to go straight.

Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story

Based on the book by William Shack, Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story looks at the impact of African American performers and musicians during the great jazz era in Paris.

The Hayloft Gang: The Story of the National Barn Dance

From the Great Migration of the 1920s through the hardships of World War II, “The National Barn Dance,” a Chicago-based variety show, unified rural Americans with traditional folk music and country humor.

A Healthy Baby Girl

A woman who contracted cancer as the result of exposure to a synthetic hormone in utero documents her journey with humor and grace.

Heart of the Sea: Kapolioka'ehukai

A portrait of Hawaiian surf legend and community activist Rell Kapolioka'ehukai Sunn, who died of breast cancer at age 47.

Heart Strings: The Story of the Kamaka Ukulele

Heart Strings is the story of Kamaka Hawaii, an instrument manufacturing business run by four generations of one Hawaiian family.

Heaven Touches Brooklyn in July

A look at one of the most enduring Italian folk traditions in America — the 110-year-old “Dance of the Giglio” celebration.

Heavy Load

Heavy Load follows a UK punk band — whose members include several musicians with learning disabilities — as they record their first album and take center stage at a mainstream music festival.

Hell of a Nation

This intimate look at two candidates struggling to participate in Afghanistan’s constitutional convention shows how the road to becoming a delegate is almost as difficult as the country’s terrain itself; only a fraction of Afghans are elected to this landmark event.

Helvetica

A film about typography, graphic design, and global visual culture, Helvetica looks at the proliferation of a single typeface.

Herb & Dorothy

A couple of modest means manages to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history.

Heroine of Hell

A painter obsessed with visions of hell and damnation forms a strange alliance with a recent widow.

Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness

Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness examines the life and work of the Jewish anthropologist Melville Herskovits, whose writings challenged prevailing notions of race and culture.

Hide and Seek

This coming-of-age story looks back at growing up in a world where you think everyone else is straight, and they assume you are.

Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust

Filmmaker Menachem Daum passes on the lessons he learned from his parents’ post-Holocaust crisis of faith to his own children and grandchildren, hoping to show how to be true to one’s deepest beliefs while being open to all people.

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

Take an in-depth look at manhood in rap music and hip-hop culture — where creative genius, poetic beauty, and mad beats collide with misogyny, violence, and homophobia.

Holding On: A Love Story from the Street

The story of a homeless couple’s five-year struggle to stay together — on and off the street.

Homecoming ... Sometimes I Am Haunted by Memories of Red Dirt and Clay

“This is the story of my family, this is the story of black farmers in the 20th century, this is the story of land and love.”

Homeland

Four Lakota Indian families face the persistent challenges of contemporary reservation life.

Homeless Karaoke

On L.A.’s Skid Row, the homeless discover that joy is just as essential to human existence as shelter, food, and clothing.

Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay

Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay examines how through a landmark lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department, activist Harry Hay and his group, the Mattachine Society, changed the face of gay rights in America.

Hopi Quilts

Visit Hopi quilters on remote Arizona mesas to see how they have made American quilting traditions their own.

The Horse Boy

THE HORSE BOY explores one family’s unforgettable journey as they travel halfway across the world in search of a miracle to heal their autistic son. This rich film blends footage from the family's adventure through the Mongolian countryside with scenes from their life at home in Texas and exquisitely captures an astonishing physical and spiritual journey.

House of Girls

Five young women share thoughts about the difficulties and joys of being alive and female.

How Is Your Fish Today?

Working on his latest screenplay in Beijing, Hui Rao is suffering from writer’s block when he begins to live as the character he is trying to create.

I Stare at You and Dream

The filmmaker and three friends reveal their struggles, wounds and romantic entanglements in an intimate look at four lives in progress.

I.M. Pei: Building China Modern

After 70 years in the U.S., renowned architect I.M. Pei returns to his ancestral home of Suzhou, China to build a modern museum in this ancient city.

I.O.U.S.A.

An examination of the growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens.

Ice People

Join the few scientific teams who have braved the beautiful and silent landscape of Antarctica and discover the secrets about the Earth's past and what the future may hold.

If I Can't Do It

An unflinching portrait of a disabled man who is pushing for independence and an equal slice of the American pie.

If I Had a Hammer

Pete Seeger's life and music as an overview of the struggles for increased democracy and social justice in America since 1930.

Imelda

Clips, interviews, home movies and more reveal how the former first lady of the Philippines courted, coddled, used and abused power for nearly four decades.

The Immigration Project

An investigation into migrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border and the efforts of the Mexican Consulate and the Medical Examiner to repatriate the remains back to Mexico.

Impossible Journeys

A two-part series that follows the greatest traditional journeys from around the world as seen through the eyes of people who still travel them.

In My Corner

Explosive portrait of young men coming of age in the world of a local community gym, evoking the need for positive role models and recognizing potential in young lives.

In the Family

IN THE FAMILY follows filmmaker Joanna Rudnick as she navigates an uncertain world with the knowledge that she has an 85-percent lifetime risk of breast cancer and a 60-percent lifetime risk of ovarian cancer.

In the Heart of Texas

Three teenage murderers are given one last chance to turn their lives around and participate in a unique psychotherapy program at the Giddings State School in Texas.

In the Light of Reverence

Land-use battles in three sacred places pull Native Americans into conflicts with mining companies, New Age practitioners, tourists and rock climbers.

In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee

Filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem goes on a quest to search for her "double"--a girl named Cha Jung Hee--in an attempt to resolve a case of mistaken identity when a South Korean orphanage switched their identities.

In the Realms of the Unreal

This experimental documentary portrays the work of Henry Darger, a janitor by day and "outsider artist" by night who transcended social isolation and poverty by creating his own world through art.

In the Shadow of Little Rock: The Life of Daisy Bates

A look at the life of African American political activist and newspaper publisher Daisy Bates.

Independent Spirits: The Faith and John Hubley Story

In the 1950s and throughout their careers, John and Faith Hubley re-defined animation, breaking from traditional styles, confronting important social issues and using innovative graphics and experimental sound to produce works unmediated by commercial concerns.

Indian Country Diaries

A two-part series that goes inside modern Native American communities in both urban and reservation settings, INDIAN COUNTRY DIARIES reveals a diverse people working to revitalize their culture.

Indian School

A series that follows the students and teachers at two very different Indian private schools.

Indigenous Always

A layered exploration of the myth of "La Malinche," a 16th century Aztec woman who--forced to be both consort and translator to the Spanish conquerers--came to symbolize both indigenous dignity and cultural destruction.

Indonesia: After the Wave

When the tsunami's waters retreated in the Indonesian territory of Aceh, two opposing forces swept in: foreigners and the Islamic law, Sharia. INDONESIA: After the Wave follows the massive influx and subsequent challenge to Aceh's conservative moral standards.

Iranian Kidney Bargain Sale

IRANIAN KIDNEY BARGAIN SALE follows young Iranians through the organ trade process, in the only country in the world where kidney trading is legal.

Iraqi Exodus

The staggering refugee crisis unfolding in the Middle East as Iraqis flee their war-torn homeland.

Iron Ladies of Liberia

This intimate documentary goes behind the scenes with Africa's first freely elected female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia.

Jalanan

Three gifted bus musicians struggle for identity, legitimacy and love on the frenzied streets of Jakarta, Indonesia.

Jane: An Abortion Service

From 1965 to 1973, "Jane" was a Chicago-based collective of 100 women who helped 12,000 women obtain safe but illegal abortions.

Jesus Politics, the Bible, & the Ballot

Israeli born filmmaker Ilan Ziv journeys 2,000 miles across America to discover the complex relationship between faith and politics during the 2008 presidential primary elections.

The Jew in the Lotus

The story of eight Jewish delegates invited to India by the Dalai Lama to share the secret of the Jewish people's spiritual survival in exile.

Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew

Overcoming Kallman's Syndrome, prejudice, self-destruction and powerful enemies in the music industry, rediscovered jazz legend Jimmy Scott recounts his rise and fall and rise again as one of the most distinctive vocalists of our time.

Joe Papp in Five Acts

In the hands of producer Joe Papp, American theater became a democratic spark that jumped the gap between audiences, the arts and the mission of building a more open society.

Joe Strummer Rocks Again!

King rocker and legendary front man of the Clash Joe Strummer is hot on the comeback trail, touring America and Japan via concert footage and interviews before his untimely death in 2002.

Journals of a Wily School

A young pickpocket in Kolkata, India is lured by police to help them crack down on more notorious criminals.

Juba! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance

JUBA! provides a rich history of tap--a hybrid art form with roots in African, European and North American percussive dance traditions--and reveals why it has enjoyed a renaissance of late.

The Judge and the General

An international detective story, THE JUDGE AND THE GENERAL follows a Chilean judge as he uncovers the truth about a regime he once supported.

July '64

JULY '64 explores the genesis and outcome of a three-night riot that erupted in two predominantly black neighborhoods in downtown Rochester, NY in 1964, a significant event in the Civil Rights era.

Jump Fence

In this experimental narrative, a man attempts to recover his lost self in a suburban backyard that becomes a surreal metaphor for his alienation.

Justice in the Coalfields

Examination of the 1989 Pittston Coal Strike, and its toll on the rank-and-file miners, and their sons and daughters, neighbors, and shopkeepers in the surrounding community.

Keeping Time: The Life, Music, and Photographs of Milt Hinton

An insider's view of jazz and life in 20th-century America, as told by legendary bassist and photographer Milt Hinton (1910-2000) and his fellow musicians.

Kelly Loves Tony

A young Southeast Asian couple wrestle with the nebulous cultural zone between first and second generation immigrant life.

The Key of G

A developmentally disabled man and his friends attempt to redefine their roles as caregivers and client at the heart of an urban community alive with music, art and creativity.

Kids Spots '94

Fifteen, 30- or 60-seconds in length, the KIDS SPOTS offer important messages for kids in fun, creative, provocative ways. Animated, live action or both, the spots come in all genres including fiction, nonfiction, music video and comedy.

Kids Spots '99

Kids Spots '99: Aloha

Luscious animation combines with live-action in musical spots showing the depth of meaning in the word "Aloha".

Kids Spots '99: Edgar and Ned

Ned and Edgar--a wolf and a dog--meet, become friends and humorously deal with "friendship issues."

Kids Spots '99: First Pow Wows Spots

Combining Native traditions with futuristic fantasy, these spots transport Pow-Wows to unusual locations, like the moon and the sea floor!

Kids Spots '99: Maxi

Maxi thinks up creative solutions to the problems faced by the animated animals and objects around him.

Kids Spots '99: Mouris Spots '99

Employing distinctive collage animation, these spots advance intellectual curiosity, youth fitness and diversity.

Kids Spots '99: Paper Peace / Harmonize

These animated spots teach kids about living in harmony--with their neighbors and the entire ecosystem.

Kids Spots '99: Wagamama Pictures Spots

Through songs and games, two buoyant spots offer a multicultural message; a third reveals the Chinese immigrant roots of the all-American cherry pie!

Kids Spots '99: What Do You Think?

These spots invite children to develop their own opinions on complex issues such as immigration, medical ethics and celebrity endorsements.

Kids Spots '99: Wordplay & Tongue Twisters

Language comes alive in five clay-on-glass animated spots about word play and tongue twisters.

Kind Hearted Woman

Acclaimed filmmaker David Sutherland (THE FARMER'S WIFE, COUNTRY BOYS) gives a portrait of a Native American woman who struggles between saving her family and risking it all to help her Indian community and abused women.

King Corn

Two recent college graduates plant a single acre of the nation's most powerful crop--corn--and set out to follow it on its journey from a seed to the dinner plate.

King Kamehameha: A Legacy Renewed

KING KAMEHAMEHA documents how the town of Kohala, Hawaii is transformed when an art conservator arrives to restore the community's cherished bronze sculpture.

Kiss My Wheels

A diverse and colorful group of adolescents with physical disabilities emerges -- luminous -- into the magic of national wheelchair basketball competition. Here they are not different.

The Kitchen

When a son defies his Egyptian father's wishes in a convenience store in Hell's Kitchen, old world values clash with those of an assimilated younger generation.

Knee Deep

The true story of attempted murder in a small town in Maine.

Knocking

Following two families who stand firm for their controversial and misunderstood Christian faith, KNOCKING reveals how Jehovah's Witnesses have helped shape history beyond the doorstep.

Kontum Diary

When an American soldier seeks to return a forgotten diary to its rightful owner - after twenty-five years and across continents - the former enemies are inspired to carve out an enduring friendship and a private peace.

Kontum Diary: The Journey Home

North Vietnamese army veteran Nguyen Van Nghia journeys to the U.S. in a trip sponsored by his former enemy, American veteran Paul Reed.

KPFA on the Air

An examination of America's first listener-sponsored community radio station--an enduring experiment in communications democracy.

L.A. Noir

Emmy Award-winning Independent Lens, the film festival in your living room, brings you the second annual film festival at your fingertips.

La Lupe Queen of Latin Soul

LA LUPE QUEEN OF LATIN SOUL documents the life, work and legacy of Afro Cuban pop singer Lupe Victoria Yoli, who rose to fame in the 1960s and died virtually unknown in 1992.

La Sierra

LA SIERRA follows the lives of three young people--living in a Medellin, Colombia neighborhood ruled by violence and a group of teenage paramilitants--as they confront war, death and love.

Lakshmi and Me

Exploring the relationship between employer and servant, LAKSHMI AND ME asks how do two women negotiate the ingrained social and cultural attitudes that govern their lives?

Lance Loud! A Death in an American Family

LANCE LOUD! A Death in an American Family offers an inside look at the eventful life and recent death of this hero of the gay liberation movement who "came out" on national television in 1973.

Land (And How It Gets That Way)

Long before land use issues, sprawl and property rights were hotly disputed topics in most American communities, developers and farmers in Woodford County, Kentucky were already at each other's throats.

The Land Is Ours

A portrait of the Tlingit and Haida peoples, from their aboriginal past through passage of the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act.

Larry v. Lockney

When Larry Tannahill and the ACLU challenge a proposal for mandatory drug testing in schools, because Tannahill believes it violates his 12-year-old son's rights, they meet with hostility and ostracism from the small community of Lockney, Texas.

The Last Conquistador

Racial tensions boil over as a brilliant and quixotic artist does battle with Hispanics, Indians and Mestizos over the purpose of public art and the meaning of American history.

The Last Cowboy

Two decades in the life of Vern Sager and his family, THE LAST COWBOY captures a family's struggle to preserve a vanishing way of life as cowboys and Indians in the Badlands of South Dakota.

The Last Letter

Legendary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's poignant portrayal of a Russian Jewish woman living in a Ukrainian city seized by the Germans who writes her son one last letter.

The Last Tightrope Dancer in Armenia

Two of Armenia's most celebrated tightrope dancers, both in their late seventies, search for an apprentice to take over this ancient art form or face having it lost forever.

Last Train Home

Set against the backdrop of the world's largest annual human migration, LAST TRAIN HOME follows the Zhang family who travel home on Chinese New Year to reunite with their teenage daughter.

Last White Man Standing

An in-depth look at the ongoing case of Tom Cholmondeley, heir to the largest white-owned estate in Kenya, who stands accused of murdering a black poacher on his land.

A League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Tracing the history of the professional bowling in America from its glory days in the 1950s to its near extinction by the late 1990s, A LEAGUE OF ORDINARY GENTLEMEN follows four pro bowlers competing in the newly modernized Professional Bowlers Association.

The Learning

Four Filipino teachers are recruited to teach in some of Baltimore's toughest schools.

Leona's Sister Gerri

A woman, abandoned and dead in a motel room after an unsuccessful illegal abortion, became an icon for this emotional issue--but who was she?

Let the Church Say Amen

In one of America's poorest neighborhoods, a storefront church in Washington, D.C. serves as a beacon of hope, pulling parishioners through adversity and despair in the months leading up to Easter.

Let the Women Vote!

A new perspective on the battle for suffrage.

Letter from Waco

A humorous portrait of "the West's most southern city," a place governed by four principles: race, religion, death and football.

A Letter without Words

Filmmaker Lisa Lewenz retraces the steps of her Jewish grandmother who dared to film life in Berlin during the rise of Nazi Germany.

Letters from the Other Side

Through the personal stories of several Mexican women and the cross-border video letters between them, their loved ones and strangers, LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE reveals the other side of the immigration story.

Life and Debt

Examination of the global economy through the complex relationships between "developed" and "developing" nations.

Life Matters

When the 1960s hit East Texas, Curtis Boyd transformed himself from a Pentecostal/Baptist minister into a doctor who provided safe, illegal abortions as part of the pro-choice movement that preceded Roe v. Wade.

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. An INDEPENDENT LENS special presentation.

A Lion's Trail

A LION'S TRAIL celebrates the timeless power of Africa's most famous song, "Mbube"--inspiration for the pop classic "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"--written by an illiterate Zulu musician who barely received pennies for his efforts.

Lioness

An intimate look at war through the eyes of women and the U.S. military policy that bans them from combat.

Listening at the Luncheonette

In six luncheonettes around the country, Americans talk about cultures under assault and building community.

A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde

A profile of the award-winning writer and cultural theorist.

Livable Landscapes: By Chance or by Choice?

Examining the connection between landscape and community in northern New England, LIVABLE LANDSCAPES: By Chance or By Choice? looks at how growth and sprawl affect quality of life and how a community works to preserve its unique character.

Livelyhood - The Workday that Wouldn't Die

From factory workers who set their own schedules to dot.com entrepreneurs who view work as a recreational sport, the rules for the typical American eight-hour workday have changed.

Livermore

The hunt for a missing time capsule reveals the heart of this eccentric California suburban town, home to a controversial totem pole, a supernatural light bulb and a nuclear research lab.

Lives Worth Living

A story about one man's struggle to survive after a spinal cord injury and the Disability Rights Movement.

Loaded Gun: Life and Death and Dickinson

Recruiting a stand-up comic, a rock band, feuding academics and Hollywood actresses to his cause, an irreverent filmmaker searches for the secret something that gave Emily Dickinson her poetic power.

Locust Point

A re-creation of the American immigrant experience in a bustling industrial city.

The Lord Is Not on Trial Here Today

The compelling personal story of the woman responsible for one of the most important and landmark First Amendment cases in U.S. Supreme Court history that set the foundation for the separation of church and state in public schools.

Los Angeles Now

LOS ANGELES NOW looks beyond "Baywatch" and "Blade Runner" to create a fresh, candid portrait of the future of America's second largest and most multicultural city.

The Loss of Nameless Things

THE LOSS OF NAMELESS THINGS is the haunting story of one young man's fall from grace: Oakley Hall, a playwright who was on the verge of national recognition when a mysterious fall violently transformed his life.

Lost Boys of Sudan

LOST BOYS OF SUDAN is a feature length documentary that follows two young refugees of Sudan's civil war through their first year in America.

Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas)

Set against the backdrop of increased attention to the U.S.-Mexican border, LOST SOULS (Animas Perdidas) looks at the impact of deportation.

Love & Diane

LOVE & DIANE explores a crucial period in the lives of two adolescent cousins, Love Hinson and Selina Hazzard, who aspire to a better life in the face of extraordinary challenges.

Love Inventory

Enlisting his four reluctant siblings, an Israeli filmmaker goes looking for a missing person from their past, uncovering a secret that changes their family forever.

Lucy at the Circus

A young girl's first visit to the circus becomes a magical fantasy of performing under the Big Top.

M & M Smith: For Posterity's Sake

Twin artists Morgan and Marvin Smith's work documented the vibrant beauty of the Harlem Renaissance.

Made in L.A.

Documenting the lives, struggle and personal transformation of three Latina immigrants working in garment factories, MADE IN L.A. explores the complex impact of globalization on the U.S. apparel industry and on its largely immigrant workforce.

Maggie Growls

Outraged by being forced to retire at the age of 65, Maggie Kuhn formed the Gray Panthers to fight against mandatory retirement and ageism and improved society's treatment of older Americans.

Mai's America

When a spunky, mini-skirted daughter of Ho Chi Minh's revolution leaves cosmopolitan Hanoi for a high school exchange program in rural Mississippi, her ideas about freedom, America, Vietnam and herself are thrown into question.

Maid in America

MAID IN AMERICA reveals the challenges that three Latina immigrants, working as nannies and housekeepers in Los Angeles, face as they leave family and friends behind to pursue the American Dream.

Make 'Em Dance: The Hackberry Ramblers' Story

From their days as a teenage duo in the Depression to recent gigs on MTV and the Grand Ole Opry stage, The Hackberry Ramblers have been the life of the party since 1933, with their energetic blend of Cajun music and western swing.

Making Peace

A look at neighborhoods across the country where ordinary people are working together to make a difference--one person at a time.

Making Tutti!

A chronicle of the creation and performance of the children's musical fairy tale "Full Moon Over Tutti" with Father Quido Sarducci.

Mama Africa: An Evening in July

On the afternoon before her arranged marriage, a reluctant young bride and aging beautician in Tunisia form a bond with deep consequences for both of them.

Mama Africa: Bintou

Against all odds and her husband's wishes, a downtrodden housewife in Burkina Faso sets out to earn enough money to educate her daughter.

Mama Africa: Growing Up Urban

In three richly imagined short dramas, three of Africa's most successful women filmmakers explore the modern African city through intimate stories about motherhood, ambition and the search for identity.

Mama Africa: Riches

When a teacher flees with her son from apartheid South Africa to an isolated village in Zimbabwe, she must fight as an independent woman and rejected outsider to claim her place within her new society.

Man Bites Shorts

Combining humor, insight and brevity, six short films explore love, basketball, bicycles and what it means to be a man.

Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita

MAPPING STEM CELL RESEARCH brings the stem cell debate to the forefront and examines the constantly evolving interplay between the promise of new discoveries, the controversy of modern science and the courage of people living with devastating disease and injury.

Maquilapolis [City of Factories]

Women workers in Tijuana's assembly factories tell their stories as they work to carve out lives of agency in a new and complicated century, revealing the transformation of a city and its people by globalization.

March Point

The journey of three teens from the Swinomish Indian Tribe who make a film about the threat from two local oil refineries.

Margaret Sanger: A Public Nuisance

A look at the early public debate surrounding birth control and the unstoppable Margaret Sanger.

Maria Tallchief

Maria Tallchief's Indian name means "woman of two worlds" and this documentary deftly weaves together the different worlds of Tallchief, including ballet and her Osage Indian heritage.

Matters of Race

Examining racial dynamics in diverse communities across the United States, this four-part series explores how race shapes Americans' sense of national and individual identity.

Means of Grace

A glimpse into the lives of women who were diagnosed as schizophrenic and institutionalized in 1950s America.

Memory of Fire

A theatrical meditation on the "discovery" of the new world by Christopher Columbus.

Mi Mambo!

Music meets the streets of East Harlem at the Harbor Conservatory where Latin rhythms create a lifeline for kids.

Milking the Rhino

MILKING THE RHINO tells the story of rural Africans at the forefront of community-based conservation: a revolution that is turning poachers into preservationists and local people into the stewards of natural resources.

Miller's Tale

A personal narrative about the life and death of award-winning playwright and actor Jason Miller.

Mine

MINE tells the poignant and powerful story of animals left behind during Katrina, and of the struggles of hurricane victims to reunite with their beloved pets. A meditation on the essential bond between humans and animals – MINE is an equally compelling story of race and class, and the power of compassion, in contemporary America.

Mirror Dance

MIRROR DANCE is the story of two women: identical twins Margarita and Ramona de Saá, forever linked by birth and dance, but struggling to overcome rifts between sisters and nations alike.

Miss Navajo

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.

Mitakuye Oyasin: All My Relatives

The history of the Native American Spirit Lake Nation through three generations of one family.

Monkey Dance

Their parents escaped Cambodia's killing fields -- now dance helps three teens survive the minefields of urban America.

More Than a Month

Shukree Hassan Tilghman, a 29-year-old African American filmmaker, goes on a cross-country campaign to end Black History Month.