Independent Lens

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

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

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

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

Ryan Abele's parents thought his frat brothers would look out for him. Instead, alleged hazing led to his death.

The tragic story of student George Desdunes is revisited from the perspective of his mother, a Haitian immigrant who made sacrifices to help her son go to college.

Independent Lens is America’s home for documentaries, airing Mondays on PBS. Watch live or stream anytime on the PBS Video app.

Jarad Nava is incarcerated for life for four attempted murders and is one of the boys featured in the Independent Lens film They Call Us Monsters, but in this excerpt from the film we get to know Yesenia, a 17-year old girl forever confined to a wheelchair after Jarad shot

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film They Call Us Monsters, teenager Juan, who is incarcerated for 90 years-to-life for first degree murder, talks about the girl he's had a crush on since kindergarten and may never have a chance to tell her how he really feels

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

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film The Witness, Bill Genovese watches as an actress recreates the moments leading up to his sister Kitty Genovese's death in the same part of Queens, New York in 1964. The actress's screams seem to fall on deaf ears

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary The Witness, Bill Genovese goes to the New York Office of Correctional Services to arrange a meeting (or confrontation) with the man -- Winston Moseley -- who murdered his sister Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York nearly 50 years ago. By meeting

In this excerpt from Independent Lens documentary The Witness, Bill Genovese, whose sister Kitty Genovese was murdered in Queens, New York in a notorious 1964 case that became front page news, returns to scene of the crime with Charlie Skoller, the prosecutor in Kitty's trial. In a peaceful

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film Containment, two former Chairs of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission express concern about the safety of nuclear power and waste. And even for towns like Carlsbad, New Mexico, home of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), that did "want it,

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Containment that features graphic novel style animation, scientists and futurists explain different scenarios in which future peoples, and possibly visitors to planet Earth, need to be warned about our radioactive waste buried underground. Whether it's drilling robots or looting humans,

This excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Containment takes a tour of the swampy area in Burke County, Georgia, adjacent to Savannah River Site nuclear facility. The distance separating the two is the width of the river itself. "No fishing" signs dot the area, and as one of

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&

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

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film Best and Most Beautiful Things, the legally blind Michelle gets more comfortable with her new boyfriend Michael, who gets her a flogger for Christmas. This is part of their adventurous exploration of BDSM and alternative lifestyles.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Best and Most Beautiful Things, Michelle Smith, a legally blind young woman on autism spectrum, confronts a former teacher who meant well but had low expectations for Michelle's future. From her perspective the teacher saw her as someone with a

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Best and Most Beautiful Things, Michelle Smith, a precocious young woman who is legally blind, shows how communicating in online communities makes her feel more equal, but going out into the real world is a lot more stressful — as she demonstrates when

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Meet the Patels, Ravi Patel attends a wedding with his parents, who, much to Ravi's embarrassment, try to discretely (but not discretely) set him up with someone's daughter.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Meet the Patels, Ravi Patel arrives in India for a trip with his parents, who are very eager for him to marry, and not so eager for him to date a white woman. As Ravi explains, everyone in his huge family have

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

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

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

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

Dr. Angela Davis speaks with Hari Sreenivasen of the PBS NewsHour about her 1972 interviews with Swedish journalists that appear in the documentary film "The Black Power Mixtape 1967 - 1975.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film The Witness, Bill Genovese tells the rest of his family over dinner that he wants to reach out to their sister’s murderer, 50 years later. His siblings do not take Bill's expanding obsession well.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary No Más Bebés, Maria Hurtado reveals how she underwent a tubal ligation at L.A. County-USC Medical Center in the 1960s while she was in great pain without the faculties to fully understand the consequences of the procedure. A medical student who

Oudon Panyanouvong, now 34, is serving a 40-year sentence for a crime he says he did not commit but pled guilty to because he didn't understand his rights as a teen during a police interrogation in 1998. A new law proposed in Tennessee would give juveniles with long

Under Tennessee law, a child can be tried in adult court, and if convicted of first-degree murder, can be sentenced to life in prison, or life with a possibility of parole after 51 years. State legislators think that law is too harsh and in 2016 a bipartisan team worked with

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

Concerned that a teenager had been convicted in an adult court and sentenced to life in prison, lawyers appealed Cyntoia Brown's murder conviction in 2011 to challenge the fairness of the trial. They argued in a Nashville court that Cyntoia was herself a victim. Part of a 7-part

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary Autism in Love, Stephen shows that his detached affect and monotone speech are no barrier to finding love. We revisit his wedding through home movies, and he expresses his love for his wife Gita in his own way.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens documentary My Nazi Legacy, Horst von Wächter reflects on his fleeting memory of his father Otto von Wächter, who had been a high-ranking Nazi official and fled into hiding after WWII. Von Wächter remains conflicted about his father's guilt.

In this excerpt from The First Rainbow Coalition, be a fly on the wall at a first meeting in Chicago in the 1960s, between three wholly different activist groups -- Black Panthers, led by the charismatic Bobby Lee, Latinx group the Young Lords Organization, and the Southern whites of the

Did a song help free an incarcerated man? Dolly Li breaks down how UC Berkeley college students wrote a track about Chol Soo Lee, a wrongfully convicted Korean immigrant sentenced to life in prison. Stream Free Chol Soo Lee now on the PBS App.

Independent Lens, America’s home for documentaries, returns Monday, September 19, starting with Sansón and Me, followed by El Equipo, Three Chaplains and the three part series A Town Called Victoria. Watch these powerful, acclaimed new films on the PBS App.

Free Chol Soo Lee co-directors Julie Ha and Eugene Yi share mouthwatering lunch with activists Ranko Yamada and Gail Whang in L.A.'s Koreatown.

Get an inside look at Free Chol Soo Lee from Independent Lens. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside California state prisons, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him.

A clip from the documentary If Dreams Were Lighting by Oscar and Emmy-nominated director Ramin Bahrani.

Acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man; Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Nosferatu the Vampyre) interviews Oscar and Emmy-nominated director Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes; Man Push Cart; Chop Shop) on his Independent Lens documentary If Dreams Were Lightning: Rural Healthcare Crisis.

We’re heating up this winter with a lineup of docs, including Beyond Utopia, Racist Trees, Razing Liberty Square, and Breaking the News. Stream Independent Lens with the PBS App.

Korean culture has long been a part of the fabric of American culture. But what was that journey like? The three most significant waves all happened in relation to geopolitical tensions and trends in both America and Korea. Dolly Li dives deeper. Stream Free Chol Soo Lee now on YouTube

Remember 1989’s True Believer, starring James Woods and Robert Downey, Jr.? Was it a prime example of Hollywood’s White Savior Complex? Dolly Li examines how the flick centered a white lawyer in a story based on Chol Soo Lee’s arrest. Stream Free Chol Soo Lee now on

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film T-Rex: Her Fight for Gold, Claressa "T-Rex" Shields talks about dating her boyfriend Rell, and how she hasn't told her coach Jason Crutchfield about it because it's a violation of his "law." We see

In this short excerpt we follow “Shariff,” a 62-year-old-former Black Panther who has worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as an informant for decades, helping foil several suspected terrorist plots and becoming involved in one particularly murky case.

Some of the biggest news stories in our country were revealed by local journalists; from early 20th century lynchings to the Rodney King beating to the murder of Breonna Taylor, local news was there first. But as budgets drop and outlets disappear, this type of coverage is in jeopardy.

In 1850s America, one women-led newsroom blazed a trail for women's rights, shifting the media landscape and ultimately affecting how we see and cover "women's" issues today.

As news evolved over the last 40 years from a single daily paper or nightly news show to something that's pushed 24/7, a mental health crisis has taken shape in our newsrooms as journalists race to cover traumatic events and get the most views.

Even though objectivity is seen as the gold standard for news coverage, OpEds and commentary have been part of the news landscape since the early days of America – and it's not always easy to spot the difference between facts and opinion.

We’re blooming this spring with a lineup of docs, including Matter of Mind: My Parkinson's, Space: The Longest Goodbye, One With The Whale, and The Tuba Thieves. Stream Independent Lens with the PBS App.

America's three largest jails are also its three largest psychiatric treatment facilities. In this excerpt from Bedlam, while one person with mental illness faces a long wait in jail before finding treatment, California Gov. Gavin Newsom tours the Twin Towers Correctional Facility where he is shocked by the

This catchy, musical short chronicles the arbitrary system of race in the United States, which kept people who were not white in an ongoing battle of identity. See how immigrants had to play "race roulette" with a biased court system due to the Alien Naturalization Act of 1790,

Legendary Chicago comedy club Zanies, where anyone who’s anyone in standup (Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, Kevin Hart) has appeared since 1978, is bringing out a new voice: Iranian American comic Sohrab Forouzesh.

Get to know Los Angeles native Christina Catherine Martinez, a fascinating hybrid standup who walks the line somewhere between traditional comedy, modern clown, and performance artist.

A mainstay at the famous Laughing Skull Lounge, Atlanta comic Ian Aber, self-described as "America's gay Christian sweetheart," helps pave the way for other gay comics in the South.

Called "too much" her whole life, Austin comic Lea’h Sampson now embraces the "too much"-ness in her comedy. She confronts the challenges of life on the road while remaining her own true self, and of being a Black woman in a world where there

With comedy on lockdown, Haitian-born comedian Tanael Joachim a.k.a. TJ shows what it means to be a griot storyteller in Brooklyn. He wrestles with performing during a pandemic, whether "wokeness" is a thing, and mining comedy from being a fish out of water.

In this moving, animated short, poet Ashley M. Jones offers a lyrical historical account of Ann Williams, an enslaved Black woman who won her freedom in the 1830s. When faced with the torturous fate of being separated from her family and sold into Southern slavery, Williams took a literal leap

Acclaimed poet Sally Wen Mao narrates the animated history of Afong Moy, America’s first recorded Chinese woman. She was brought to America by merchants and was exhibited as a circus oddity in 1830s New York City. She was eventually managed and exploited by circus showman P.T. Barnum as

A wild hog hunt in the Ozarks leads to an unexpectedly vulnerable dialogue between Iranian American filmmaker Andy Sarjahani and his childhood friend Bubba as they navigate a polarized world. As their paths diverged in the increasingly anti-Middle Eastern years after 9/11, Andy's journey of self-examination tries

His ability to paint portraits of Saddam Hussein likely saved his life. Oil painter Samir Khurshid reflects on his own tumultuous life growing up surrounded by death and chaos in war-torn Iraq. His densely layered work is heavily influenced by both the cross-cultural chaos of life as a refugee in

With help and inspiration from experienced Jamaican taxi drivers Dean and Stacy (one of the first female drivers they've met in Kingston) the Brodie brothers explore the possibilities of running a taxi service on their own. Twin Charter | Driver Radio: Jamaica, Episode 3

With their parents' own immigrant journey from Jamaica to America in mind, the Brodie brothers travel through the heart of Jamaica, to Mandeville and Montego Bay, in hopes of better understanding where they come from. All Routes Lead Home | Driver Radio: Jamaica, Episode 4

Far West Texas is a place where local folklore looms as large as the landscape. Two fronteriza women—one a public radio music show host, the other a Mariachi and folklórico dancer—live in two cultures at the same time, as they struggle to find their place in the vast

Through a collaborative writing process with filmmakers, three women bring to life “The Command Center to Bring Women Home,” an imagined space run by formerly incarcerated women for those with nowhere else to turn but to each other, a place where mothers can reunite and heal with their children, and

The hustle and bustle of New York City subways provides a veil of anonymity, making invasions of personal space inevitable. There are innocuous interactions, but also violations that cross the line. Vividly shot in New York subways and stations, Underground emboldens the survivors of these incidents to share their stories

Following an extended hiatus, Michelle Guzowski takes a risk by returning to her favorite local bowling alley in the Ohio Rust Belt, after coming out to fellow bowlers as a trans woman. While the alley's new owners made it seem a welcoming space, the changes are hard for

The richly obsessive life and work of renowned autistic artist Gregory Blackstock comes to life, as he uses his art to catalogue and make sense of the world around him. Gregory’s cousin Dorothy helps bring his drawings to the attention of the art world, while the film brings his

The Brodie brothers reunite with an old acquaintance named Orville, a local jack-of-all-trades (DJ, beekeeper, driver, you name it) who has taken up driving an unregistered taxi as a supplemental source of income. Reunion | Driver Radio: Jamaica, Episode 2

Twin brothers Don and Ron Brodie travel to Jamaica to reconnect with their roots, with first stop the bustling city of Kingston. While all-night dancehall parties are a main attraction for tourists and locals alike, the Brodies link up with a local taxi driver to get a feel for life

A filmmaker's intimate phone calls with her brother explore his fragile recovery from opioid addiction. Using imaginative animation, they journey both into the cosmos—a place her brother has encyclopedic knowledge about—and an all-too-real world where shame and pain take their toll.

50 years after a gunman opened fire from the tower at University of Texas — the first recorded mass shooting in US history and subject of Independent Lens film TOWER — students can now carry loaded handguns on campus. Proponents of the law, affecting all public universities in Texas, argue an armed

In this video extra, learn more about the story of Clela Rorex, former County Clerk in Boulder, CO, who in 1975 helped change history by becoming the first in the United States to approve a marriage license for gay couples, including Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan. Their 40-year struggle for

Sophie Sartain, director of the Independent Lens documentary Mimi and Dona, which explores the trials of parenting and care through the story of her aunt and grandmother, brings us this short film about her relationship with her son Ben, who was diagnosed with autism. Unlike Dona, Ben is fortunate to

In this piece by filmmaker Mat Hames, we get to know more about Eastern Shoshone tribal elder Philbert McLeod, one of the stars of Hames’ Independent Lens film What Was Ours. Philbert had an incredible breadth of knowledge about his tribe’s history, and received a Purple Heart fighting for

A follow-up to East of Salinas, The Dreamer revisits Jose Ansaldo, a bright, optimistic kid about to graduate from middle school in Salinas, California, the nation's "salad bowl." His single mom is a farmworker who struggles to support Jose and his siblings. Jose dreams of going

With parents working long hours in the fields, third grader Jose Ansaldo turns to his teacher, Oscar Ramos, for guidance. Jose is undocumented and as he grows older he begins to understand the complexities of the situation. Four years later, Mr. Ramos checks in on Jose, now in middle school

Exploring the field of “climate psychology,” Everything Wrong and Nowhere to Go is a candid and comedic self-portrait in which the filmmaker turns the camera on herself and goes in search of a cure for her crippling climate anxiety. This personal documentary asks how we can find a space of

Holidays can get hectic. We get it. Throw on the ol' Independent Lens yule log and add some serenity to your festivities.

A deaf father and his hearing daughter explore how imprisonment has shaped their relationship and their advocacy.

What do truckers and tandooris have in common? Actor Rupak Ginn (Royal Pains) travels to the highly-acclaimed Punjabi Dhaba in Bakersfield, California, to find out. He learns about immigrant Balvinder Singh Saini’s journey from truck driver to dhaba owner and is joined by celebrated actor and comedian, Nik Dodani

For so many high-schoolers, prom is a rite of passage in all of its love-filled, well-coiffed, abundantly photographed glory. But for generations of LGBTQ+ youth, prom has been emblematic of an exclusion from a world they could not experience as their authentic selves.

Luciano, once an immigrant himself, now makes a living as a maletero, a porter driving across the border, delivering goods from immigrants who settled in Texas to their families in the same Mexican town they all left decades ago.

Pani puri, pakoras, and… pageants? Actor Rupak Ginn (Royal Pains) travels to Taaza, an Indian restaurant tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southern Virginia. There he discovers how his African American wife Nancy Redd’s heritage intersects with his own, and how people and cultures strive to stay

The ancestors are calling as actor Rupak Ginn (Royal Pains) heads to New Jersey to dine with actor/writer Sheetal Sheth (The World Unseen) at Mejwaani, a Maharashtrian restaurant, in honor of his mother's heritage. He then travels to his hometown of New York for a mom-cooked meal—

Actor Rupak Ginn returns home to Los Angeles, where he dines on Desi street food delicacies with a twist at Paratta. He joins friend actor/writer/comedian Kiran Deol at a South Asian grocery store to shop, while pondering the future of South Asians in America, and then share hearty

When I'm Her follows the double life of a dancer who inhabits an alter ego. A luminary figure at American Ballet Theatre in New York, Michael Cusumano had a stellar career ahead of him, but after past trauma prevented him from realizing his artistic and professional potential, he

Experience an animated journey through the first 24 hours after arrest in New Orleans, when an individual is processed into jail, held overnight, and then brought shackled to court for the first time.

"After Angola" follows a small group of men who formed a peer support group after they'd spent significant time inside Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary, once the most violent prison in America.

“D.A. Time” follows a young woman in New Orleans who has to wait in jail for more than 60 days after a busted weed deal, before even being charged with a crime. This episode explores the uncertainty families face during this waiting game, and the pressures to plead guilty