Independent Lens

Indie Films Series / 8 Seasons

Authentic stories. Extraordinary people.

1h 25m / TV-14

A Path Appears: A SurvivorĺäĄ_s Story

3m 26s / TV-PG

In this scene from the third episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Nicholas Kristof and Regina Hall meet a woman in Atlanta now at the Women’s Resource Center, a shelter, aid, and advocacy organization for battered women. She’d escaped a cycle of abuse with a man who beat her so badly he once broke an orbital bone around her eye.

Coming to Independent Lens: Rich Hill

30s / TV-PG

Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner Rich Hill follows three teenage boys, Andrew, Harley, and Appachey, as they struggle with isolation, broken families, and lack of opportunity in their Missouri town, where the idea of the American Dream may remain elusively out of reach, but the desire for a better tomorrow remains.

Rich Hill: Dreams and Prayers for the Future

2m 9s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Rich Hill, two of the boys, Appachey and Andrew, share their dreams for their own future. Appachey fantasizes about someday moving to China and teaching art (“painting dragons”), while Andrew wonders if his daily prayers to God will someday be answered.

Rich Hill: Moving Back to Thayer

2m 12s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Rich Hill, one of the boys, Andrew, explains how his family left Rich Hill and moved to Thayer, Missouri because they simply could not make it in the former town, but he’s tired of packing up and moving all the time. “I have no say in what happens, they’re the parents and I’m just a kid.”

A Path Appears: Protests in Port-au-Prince

1m 3s / TV-PG

In this scene from the second episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Nicholas Kristof and Alfre Woodard arrive in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, just as anti-government protests unfold on the streets after an election has been postponed.

A Path Appears: Catalina of Cartagena

1m 51s / TV-PG

In this scene from the second episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Eva Longoria and Nicholas Kristof tour a slum in Cartagena, Colombia, with Catalina Escobar, founder and director of the Juan Felipe Gomez Escobar Foundation (“Juanfe”). They meet young women who are pregnant or already have several children. “She can get any girl to talk,” Longoria tells us.

A Path Appears: The Cycle of Poverty in West Virginia

1m 57s / TV-PG

In this scene from the second episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Jennifer Garner returns to her home state of West Virginia with Nicholas Kristof to visit rural, impoverished families. They travel with Tonya Bonecutter, a caseworker for Save the Children’s Early Steps, who explains that meth and prescription drugs plague all the families she works with.

Coming to Independent Lens: The Kill Team

30s / TV-PG

American soldier Adam Winfield attempted to thwart war crimes even more heinous than Abu Ghraib but was then himself charged with premeditated murder. At the core of The Kill Team is a moral quandary: whether a soldier is duty-bound to risk life and limb to stop fellow soldiers from committing atrocities.

Coming to Independent Lens: Happiness

30s / TV-PG

A 9-year-old monk has never before left his Bhutanese village perched high in the Himalayas, where the nearest road is a three-day walk. When connected to electricity for the first time, he treks to the nearest city in search of a television, in a story of the bittersweet seduction of technology and progress.

Happiness: Sneaking Off to Do Archery

57s / TV-PG

In this scene from the Independent Lens documentary Happiness, 9-year-old monk Peyangki shoots arrows with some friends at an archery range, and then tells him how archery is actually banned at the monastery. He seems to long for a more “normal” way of life.

Happiness: A Yak for a Big TV

1m 53s / TV-PG

In this scene from the Independent Lens documentary Happiness, the uncle of 9-year-old monk Peyangki talks with other villagers about his plans to sell one of his yaks in order to have enough money to buy a television set. A venture to the big city looms ahead, where “they have different kinds of TVs, big and small.” Will TV become a babysitter for some parents?

Powerless: Electricity Riots

1m 16s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Powerless, with the Indian summer settling in, the electricity shortage in Kanpur takes on crisis proportions as riots break out in a literal power struggle, with police cracking down violently on frustrated demonstrators.

Coming to Independent Lens: Powerless

30s / TV-PG

A literal power struggle exists in Kanpur, India, which suffers from day-long electricity cuts. In the Independent Lens documentary Powerless, we meet a Robin Hood-like electrician, a “katiyabaaz” renowned for his prowess in stealing power, and the first female chief of the local power supply company, as they each try to solve the city’s energy crisis in very different ways.

Powerless: Crackdown on Katiya

5m 32s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Powerless, Ritu Maheshwari, the newly appointed head of the Kanpur, India power company, takes a tough stance against electricity thieves. This leads to a police crackdown as they sweep the city looking for “katiya,” which are jerry-rigged electrical connections, even though many who’ve used them are in desperate situations.

Coming to Independent Lens: Brakeless

30s / TV-PG

The Independent Lens documentary Brakeless asks: What led the driver of a Japanese commuter train to accelerate perilously, causing a deadly crash? Piecing together personal accounts of those affected by the tragedy, Brakeless poses a question for a society that equates speed with progress: have what were once national virtues, punctuality and compliance, become dangerous?

Brakeless: Deadly Speed at Rush Hour

1m 13s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Brakeless, we see the extensive and incredibly busy Japanese commuter train system that goes to Osaka, including the train that fatefully crashed into an apartment complex, killing 107 people. What would make a train driver dangerously speed up, all to save 8 seconds?

Brakeless: Model of the Tragic Train Crash

1m / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Brakeless, Mr. Ogura, a survivor of the 2005 train crash in Amagasaki, Japan, talks about why he made a graphic model of the crashed train in miniature scale. “It’s as if my memories and the healing process are working together,” he explains.

Twin Sisters: Adoptive Parents Meet in China

1m 5s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Twin Sisters, two sets of parents, one American, one Norwegian, revisit the time they met in China after adopting infant girls and realized that the babies were twins. One mother worried about losing her new baby while the other worried about losing touch.

Twin Sisters: Sibling Love

2m 3s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Twin Sisters, the special bond that twin girls Mia and Alexandra have developed even while living thousands of miles apart becomes even stronger after they spend time together at Alexandra’s Norway home.

Twin Sisters: American Girl Meets Her Norwegian Twin

1m 56s / TV-PG

In this emotional scene from the Independent Lens documentary Twin Sisters, an American girl travels with her adoptive family to Norway to meet her twin sister for the first time after they’d been separated at birth. The village of Fresvik is a long way from Sacramento, but even with a challenging language barrier these two girls share a magical bond.

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