Independent Lens

Indie Films Series / 8 Seasons

Authentic stories. Extraordinary people.

Watch Latest: S26 E1

1h 16m / TV-PG

American Denial: People at the Margins

1m 55s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary American Denial, researcher Sudhir Venkatesh talks about his own survey of African Americans entrenched in poor housing projects. One leader of a gang told him, “If you really want to know what life is like you gotta get closer, hang around with us.” This is what Gunnar Myrdal tried to do as well, in his landmark study of race in America.

American Denial: An American Dilemma

2m 54s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary American Denial, we are introduced to Swedish researcher Gunnar Myrdal, who began his investigation into American values and views on equality in the 1930s. Myrdal’s unsettling study An American Dilemma was published in 1944, and the questions it raised about racial oppression still trouble us today.

Coming to Independent Lens: American Denial

30s / TV-PG

In the wake of recent events that have sparked a national dialogue on race dynamics, American Denial explores the impact of unconscious biases around race and class, using Gunnar Myrdal’s 1944 investigation of Jim Crow racism.

Through a Lens Darkly: Gordon Parks

1m 47s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the opening moments of the Independent Lens documentary Through a Lens Darkly, the groundbreaking African American photographer Gordon Parks is explored. A hero to many modern photographers, Parks “felt the need to use humanity to get people to become aware of how people suffered.”

Through a Lens Darkly: Family Photo Albums

1m 44s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the opening moments of the Independent Lens documentary Through a Lens Darkly, we see how African American family secrets and histories can be explored through the family photo album, in what it chooses to represent by what is absent, and what is hidden.

Coming to Independent Lens: Through a Lens Darkly

30s / TV-PG

Illustrating the power photography had and still has in shaping America’s views of race, Through a Lens Darkly traces 170 years of history -- from daguerreotypes in the days of slavery to more modern times — of African Americans in front of, and behind, the camera.

A Path Appears: Battered in Atlanta

2m 8s / TV-PG

In this scene from the third episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Nicholas Kristof joins the Atlanta police department to investigate a domestic violence case. The victim tells Kristof she doesn’t think it’ll happen again while blaming herself for the attack.

A Path Appears: A Girl Named Flevian

3m 17s / TV-PG

In this scene from the third episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Nicholas Kristof and Mia Farrow join Jessica Posner Odede of Shining Hope in Kibera, a notorious slum in Nairobi, Kenya, as they race to get a violently abused girl named Flavian to the hospital. They discover a disturbing revelation in her case.

Coming to Independent Lens: A Path Appears

3m 7s / TV-PG

From the team behind the groundbreaking Half the Sky, A Path Appears goes to locations throughout the United States, plus Colombia, Haiti, and Kenya to uncover the harshest forms of gender-based oppression and human rights violations, and solutions being implemented to combat them.

A Path Appears: A Nashville Pimp

2m 4s / TV-PG

In this scene from the first episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Shana Goodwin, whose earliest memories are of being sexually abused by her grandfather, guides Ashley Judd through the streets of Nashville, where they encounter a pimp waiting on a street corner for three of his “girls.” He tells them he supplies the women with shelter, food, pedicures, and drugs.

A Path Appears: National Day of Johns Arrests

2m 47s / TV-PG

In this scene from the first episode of the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, Nicholas Kristof follows Chicago police’s special operations for a sting cracking down on “johns.” Focusing on the demand side of the multi-billion dollar trafficking industry is a way to shift blame from prostitutes.

A Path Appears: A Daughter Lost and Found

2m 34s / TV-PG

In this powerful scene from the Independent Lens documentary series A Path Appears, we go to Boston, as Nicholas Kristof joins Audrey Morrissey of anti-trafficking organization My Life My Choice to meet a family looking for their daughter Maria, whom they fear has fallen prey to sex traffickers and is living on the streets. Kristof and Morrissey help Maria’s parents search for her online.

Coming Soon to Independent Lens: Evolution of a Criminal

1m 48s / TV-PG

How does a 16-year-old go from honors student to bank robber? In Evolution of a Criminal, filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe explores the financial straits that led him to a desperate act as teenager in Texas, and returns to the scene of the crime to interview family members, close friends, and mentors to reflect on the aftermath.

Evolution of a Criminal: Pastor Ned

1m 9s / TV-PG

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Evolution of a Criminal, Pastor Ned, one of the victims of the robbery committed by a then-teenage Darius Clark Monroe, tells the filmmaker how he felt about being victimized. He was much less forgiving back when it happened.

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.

Supported by