Independent Lens

Indie Films Series / 8 Seasons

Authentic stories. Extraordinary people.

1h 16m / TV-PG

They Call Us Monsters - Juvenile Prisoners Write Film - Clip

1m 39s

In this scene from the Independent Lens film They Call Us Monsters, filmmaker Gabe Cowan introduces us to the screenwriting class he teaches to a group of incarcerated teen boys housed at a Los Angeles facility for juveniles tried as adults. While they can't physically leave, they can imagine their stories on screen, and we see a scene from this autobiographical film-within-the-film.

They Call Us Monsters - Trailer

30s

They Call Us Monsters goes behind the walls of the Compound, a high-security facility where Los Angeles houses its most violent juvenile criminals, to follow three young offenders who sign up to take a screenwriting class with producer Gabe Cowan as they await their respective trials. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults. To their victims, they’re monsters.

Forever Pure - "We Have Arabs in Our Team?" - Clip

1m 50s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Forever Pure, Dzhabrail Kadiyev and Zaur Sadayev, two young, Muslim soccer players who were brought over from Chechen to play for Beitar FC in Israel, begin training and are greeted angrily by a rowdy, anti-Muslim group of Beitar fans. "You brought us two Muslims, not football players!" they yell before cursing the players out.

Forever Pure - Beitar's Billionaire Owner - Clip

2m 5s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Forever Pure, we meet Arcadi Gaydamak, controversial Russian-Israeli billionaire owner of Israeli soccer team Beitar. Not much of a soccer fan, the team's influence was appealing to someone with designs on becoming mayor of Jerusalem. After Beitar won back-to-back Israeli League championships mayor seemed within his grasp, but was not to be.

Forever Pure - Trailer

30s

The story of how Beitar Jerusalem, the most popular and controversial soccer team in Israel, spiraled out of control after their Russian-Israeli oligarch owner brought two Muslim players from Chechnya onto the team. Forever Pure examines the clash between personal identity, politics, money and sports, exploring how racism has the potential to destroy not only a team but an entire society.

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes - Garbage Jail - Clip

1m 42s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, Charisse Davidson, a Missouri woman, tells the story of how she came to spend three days in jail for failing to place a lid on her garbage can. She had the choice of paying a steep fine for a ticket she never received, or turn herself in and go to jail.

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes - From Coal to Prison - Clip

1m 48s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, the curator of the Wheelwright Public Library and History Museum in Wheelwright, eastern Kentucky, talks about what it means to have the prison coming back to a place desperate for jobs after the coal company (and later the prison) left town.

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes - Kanye on Cassette - Clip

1m 24s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, a representative from sendapackage.com, a company dedicated to sending goods and products to prisoners, shows us audio cassettes they sell that are made specifically for prisoners -- which use glue instead of screws, even though they're allowed to sell tuna in potentially dangerous metal cans.

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes - Trailer

30s

More people are imprisoned in the U.S. at this time than any other time or place in history, yet prisons themselves have never felt further away or more out of sight. A cinematic journey through a series of seemingly ordinary American landscapes, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes excavates the hidden world of the modern prison system and explores lives outside the gates affected by prisons.

National Bird - Trailer

30s

National Bird follows whistleblowers who, despite possible consequences, are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. The film gives rare insight through the eyes of both survivors and veterans who suffer from PTSD while plagued by guilt over participating in the killing of faceless people in foreign countries.

National Bird - NSA Analyst Turned Activist - Clip

1m 31s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film National Bird, Daniel, a former NSA signals intelligence analyst-turned-whistleblower, now exist in the worst of all worlds because the government is investigating him for espionage. As someone who has both worked for the intelligence community, and who is politically active, Daniel must live in fear and secrecy.

National Bird - Borders Don't Matter Anymore - Clip

2m 19s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film National Bird, former U.S. military technical sergeant Lisa talks about working on the DGS (distributed ground system), which spans the globe, eating personal data and contributing to decisions that led to drone strikes from anywhere, anytime. "I thought I was going to be on the right side of history and today I don't believe I was," she says.

National Bird - "You Said it Was Okay to Kill Them" - Clip

2m

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film National Bird, Heather, a former U.S. military drone pilot who is now a masseuse, talks about the emotional distress caused by knowing she was responsible for the deaths of people, something she tried to push out of her mind but found impossible to shake. "You see someone die, because you said it was okay to kill them," she says.

National Bird - Trailer

30s

National Bird follows whistleblowers who, despite possible consequences, are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. The film gives rare insight through the eyes of both survivors and veterans who suffer from PTSD while plagued by guilt over participating in the killing of faceless people in foreign countries.

The Last Laugh - My Revenge Against Hitler - Clip

1m 27s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film The Last Laugh, Holocaust survivors Elly Gross and Renee Firestone take an indoor gondola ride at Las Vegas' Venetian Hotel serenaded by "Volare," but Elly admits she cannot enjoy it because she feels guilt for all those who did not survive Auschwitz and aren't there to enjoy it, too.

The Last Laugh - From the Holocaust to Rwanda - Clip

1m 37s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film The Last Laugh, Holocaust survivor Renee Firestone talks about how her late husband missed some terrible things happening in the modern world, like 9/11, and Rwanda, which she visited. In Rwanda, she notes, 1 million Tutsis were murdered in just four months. "And this is after the Holocaust, when we keep saying 'Never again'? So that’s where we are."

The Last Laugh - Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, Comedy and Dar

1m 20s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film The Last Laugh, writer/director/comedian Mel Brooks (who does his Hitler impression), director Rob Reiner and his dad Carl Reiner, and comedians Sarah Silverman and Judy Gold all talk about the importance of humor on taboo topics like the Holocaust. Gold says the joke has to be funny, while Silverman says comedy puts light on darkness.

The Last Laugh - Trailer

29s

The Holocaust would seem to be an absolutely off-limits topic for comedy — but is it? History shows that even the victims of the Nazi concentration camps used humor as a means of survival and resistance. The Last Laugh weaves together stories from Auschwitz survivor Renee Firestone and interviews with influential comedians from Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman, and Gilbert Gottfried.

SEED: The Untold Story - Pesticide and Suicide - Clip

2m 42s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film SEED: The Untold Story, Suman Khulko, a seed collector in a farming family in eastern India, tells how her brother insisted they use chemicals and hybrids to make their farm profitable, but the results were disastrous and tragic. Their hybrid seeds became diseased, and her uncle went mad and committed suicide—by drinking the same chemical pesticide.

SEED: The Untold Story - Botanical Explorer Joe - Clip

2m 3s

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film SEED: The Untold Story, we meet seed-obsessed botanical explorer Joseph Simcox, who, with his brother Patrick, shows us rare and precious seeds they've collected from all over. From Bolivia to Tanzania, Peru to West Virginia to Vietnam, Simcox has collected thousands and thousands of seeds, to bring them to as large a swath of humanity as possible.

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