Independent Lens (2000-2010)

(Airdate: 1/19/10)

Music sampling and debates about artistic expression, copyright law and money.

(Airdate: 1/12/10)

A New England senior citizen chorus rehearses for its new show.

(Airdate: 12/29/09)

The Rev. Paul O'Brien arrives at Saint Patrick Parish in Lawrence, Mass., to find ethnic tensions...

(Airdate: 12/8/09)

Some theoretical scientists and fine artists become modern paper-folders.

(Airdate: 11/24/09)

Creativity and design impact how people relate to manufactured objects like cell phones and...

(Airdate: 11/17/09)

László Kovács and Vilmos Zsigmond escaped the Soviet oppression of the Hungarian Revolution to...

(Airdate: 11/10/09)

An aspiring musician suffers a setback when his kidney fails and he must search for a living organ...

(Airdate: 11/3/09)

American Indian tribes face opposition in changing the energy habits of traditional fossil fuel...

(Airdate: 10/27/09)

The police offer a pickpocket a full pardon if he will help them track down more criminals.

(Airdate: 10/20/09)

Five generations of mining families illustrate the story of Butte, Mont., once the world's largest...

(Airdate: 10/13/09)

Herb and Dorothy Vogel built one of the most important contemporary art collections in history

(Airdate: 9/21/09)

Director Juan Mandelbaum investigates what happened to those who were kidnapped during the 1976-1983...

(Airdate: 6/16/09)

Political battles that led to the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy of the U.S. military.

(Airdate: 5/26/09)

Jack and Ina write secret love letters while held in a concentration camp.

(Airdate: 5/19/09)

Survivors of the 1972 Andes plane crash recall how they survived in the mountains for 60 days with...

(Airdate: 5/12/09)

Interviews with former and current members of the Crips and the Bloods, two of the most notorious...

(Airdate: 5/5/09)

Surviving Japanese Kamikaze pilots recall their brutal training and experiences.

(Airdate: 4/28/09)

The history of the United Workers Cooperative Colony, a cooperative apartment built in the Bronx in...

(Airdate: 4/14/09)

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai reclaims her land and culture by planting trees.

(Airdate: 4/7/09)

Rural Africans are at the forefront of community-based conservation and preservation of wildlife.

(Airdate: 3/31/09)

An ex-Mujahideen soldier longs for a peaceful life after years of fighting in the Soviet-Afghan war.

(Airdate: 3/24/09)

A film outlines the caste system in Mumbai and how a maid named Lakshmi flourishes despite social...

(Airdate: 3/17/09)

At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a man returns to Iran with his American wife to have a...

(Airdate: 2/24/09)

At America's oldest Mardi Gras in Mobile, Ala., events remain segregated between whites and blacks;...

(Airdate: 2/10/09)

In 1999, undercover narcotics officer Thomas Coleman and his drug task force arrested dozens of...

(Airdate: 2/3/09)

America's first shock jock, Petey Greene, holds nothing back on his raw, uncensored radio and TV...

(Airdate: 1/6/09)

Historians and designers talk about fonts, and why Helvetica reigns as the most popular.

(Airdate: 12/30/08)

Iraqi film student Muthana Mohmed gets his dream job working on a Hollywood movie, where...

(Airdate: 12/23/08)

The relationship between Edith Beale and her daughter, Edie, aunt and cousin to Jacqueline Kennedy...

(Airdate: 12/16/08)

Composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars create an opera about J. Robert Oppenheimer's...

(Airdate: 12/9/08)

The life of author Harold Louis Doc Humes was consumed with ideas about politics, literature and...

(Airdate: 11/25/08)

Physicists search for the Higgs Boson, a particle important to the understanding of how the universe...

(Airdate: 11/18/08)

Three teens from the Swinomish tribe investigate the impact of two oil refineries on their tribal...

(Airdate: 11/13/08)

A group of female U.S. Army support soldiers became the first women in U.S. history to serve in...

(Airdate: 11/6/08)

Josh Osborne hatched a plan with his friends and relatives to kill his mother after she reneged on a...

(Airdate: 10/28/08)

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf addresses his ideas for a democratized society.

(Airdate: 10/22/08)

Filmmaker Brett Morgen mixes animation with archival footage to tell the story of the conspiracy...

(Airdate: 6/19/08)

Parents of a 13-year-old Japanese kidnapped by North Korean spies battle for 30 years to bring her...

(Airdate: 6/15/08)

Amateur yachtsman Donald Crowhurst takes part in the first solo, nonstop around-the-world boat race;...

(Airdate: 6/10/08)

The Ferus Gallery's art scene from 1956 to 1966; Terrence Howard hosts.

(Airdate: 6/3/08)

A Mexican-American sent to prison in 1960 wages a legal battle against the violence and abuse of...

(Airdate: 5/27/08)

Filmmaker Socheata Poeuv grew up in the U.S., never knowing her family had survived the Khmer Rouge...

(Airdate: 5/20/08)

A Sikh man from Mesa, Ariz., is murdered, a victim of a hate crime in the wake of Sept. 11; host...

(Airdate: 5/6/08)

Male roles in the hula tradition with Robert Cazimero, a teacher at the only all-male hula school in...

(Airdate: 4/15/08)

Two college graduates plant a single acre of corn and follow it on its journey to the dinner table.

(Airdate: 4/8/08)

An openly gay man of Navajo and Puerto Rican descent, Jock Soto retired from the New York City...

(Airdate: 4/1/08)

Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles, America's first all-female mariachi band, was founded in 1994 and is...

(Airdate: 3/18/08)

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, is Africa's first freely elected female head of State.

(Airdate: 2/26/08)

Three former felons in New York are in different stages of life after doing time.

(Airdate: 2/19/08)

From the 1860s to the 1920s, towns and counties across America violently expelled black communities,...

(Airdate: 1/29/08)

While writing a screenplay, Hui Rao begins to live the life of the character he is creating.

(Airdate: 1/22/08)

A Sikh-American family makes its way to the Grand Canyon but gets trapped in the desert.

(Airdate: 1/15/08)

The evolving interplay between new discoveries in stem cell research and the courage of people...

(Airdate: 1/8/08)

Filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb tries to understand her brother's world after he is diagnosed with...

(Airdate: 12/18/07)

Ralph Nader has worked as a consumer advocate for more than 40 years and has run for president four...

(Airdate: 12/11/07)

The staff of Pennsylvania State University's campus newspaper face challenges such as declining...

(Airdate: 11/27/07)

One small courthouse in the African nation of Cameroon is run by state prosecutor Vera Ngassa and...

(Airdate: 11/20/07)

The mining town of Picher, Okla., is divided by fears of health risks, environmental politics and...

(Airdate: 11/13/07)

A 21-year-old competes in the Miss Navajo Nation pageant which showcases a contestant's skills in...

(Airdate: 11/6/07)

Two U.S. soldiers revisit the Aleutian Island of Attu in Alaska, the site where 3,000 Japanese...

(Airdate: 10/30/07)

The Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip and efforts to achieve democracy.

(Airdate: 10/23/07)

Eight-year-old children in China compete for the position of Class Monitor.

(Airdate: 10/16/07)

Will Shortz, editor of The New York Times crossword puzzle, and the puzzle constructors with whom he...

(Airdate: 6/5/07)

1960s' New York's Latin music scene dubs singer Lupe Victoria Yoli ``the queen of Latin soul.''

(Airdate: 5/29/07)

Street musician Mark Bittner relates with a flock of wild red-and-green parrots.

(Airdate: 5/22/07)

Two families are practicing members of Jehovah's Witnesses.

(Airdate: 5/15/07)

Three Cambodian refugees raised as Americans in inner-city projects near Seattle, face deportation.

(Airdate: 5/8/07)

An 80-year-old survivor of internment camps, Hiroshima and homelessness confronts his past in the...

(Airdate: 4/24/07)

The Enron corporate disaster resulted in top executives walking away with more than $1 billion,...

(Airdate: 4/10/07)

Ethiopian coffee growers fight for fair trade among multinational companies.

(Airdate: 4/3/07)

Jasmine and her teenage friends endure a brutal work environment at a blue jeans factory.

(Airdate: 3/27/07)

The fates of Death Row inmates Robert Tarver and Madison Hobley and the factors that influence who...

(Airdate: 3/20/07)

Two thieves dressed as police officers stole 13 works from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum...

(Airdate: 2/27/07)

Teacher Jeff Smith starts a youth-oriented insurgent campaign during the 2004 Missouri Democratic...

(Airdate: 2/20/07)

Machismo in rap music and hip-hop culture.

(Airdate: 2/13/07)

Afghan-American filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi examines her father's efforts as an OB/GYN trying to help...

(Airdate: 2/6/07)

Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's co-composer and arranger, leads a discreet life as a gay man in...

(Airdate: 1/30/07)

A basketball coach and an artist living with dystonia, a neurological disorder forcing muscles to...

(Airdate: 1/23/07)

Three middle-aged men deliver life-saving humanitarian aid to civilians and doctors around the...

(Airdate: 1/16/07)

A 17-year-old Israeli-Arab woman with feminist ideas strives to succeed within her traditional...

(Airdate: 1/2/07)

Two women lead their communities in battles against national environmental groups for control of the...

(Airdate: 12/26/06)

A selection of short films focuses on teenagers: ``My Life ... Disoriented,'' ``The Zit'' and...

(Airdate: 12/19/06)

Five Cuban photographers have very different perspectives on their art and the Cuban Revolution.

(Airdate: 12/12/06)

John Fante struggles as a writer in Los Angeles during the 1930s.

(Airdate: 11/28/06)

Residents, artists and activists in Hudson, N.Y., protest the proposal for a multinational...

(Airdate: 11/21/06)

Journalists and others in Afghanistan, Israel, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Sierra Leone and the U.S....

(Airdate: 11/7/06)

Political cartoonist Paul Conrad's 50-year career spans 11 U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman...

(Airdate: 10/31/06)

A Chesapeake Bay community prepares for the 50th crowning of Miss Outdoors during the National...

(Airdate: 10/24/06)

Animator Paul Fierliger presents an artist's view of people and dogs.

(Airdate: 10/24/06)

The drama and complexities of producing international versions of ``Sesame Street'' in Bangladesh,...

(Airdate: 6/22/06)

The emotional and economic impact of experimental treatments; diagnosis disparities; the difference...

(Airdate: 6/21/06)

A family must decide when to stop cancer treatment, as another family tries to figure out how to...

(Airdate: 6/13/06)

Maverick farmer John Peterson abandoned traditional farming to move toward building an organic and...

(Airdate: 6/6/06)

Three college professors faced felony convictions after a 1960 police raid uncovered homoerotic...

(Airdate: 5/23/06)

Two teenage brothers work in the Cerro Rico silver mines in Bolivia to earn money so they can attend...

(Airdate: 5/16/06)

Filmmakers explore the future of human reproduction through dreamlike cinematography and personal...

(Airdate: 5/9/06)

An 11-year-old girl tries to be someone other than herself; a Sikh-American family questions its...

(Airdate: 5/2/06)

The core musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

(Airdate: 4/25/06)

The history of professional bowling in the United States; four pro bowlers compete in the newly...

(Airdate: 4/18/06)

Three illegal soldiers experience war, death and love in a small neighborhood ruled by a group...

(Airdate: 4/11/06)

The philosophy and motivations behind the work of activist and poet John Trudell and his...

(Airdate: 3/28/06)

The history of women firefighters in America includes the story of Lt. Brenda Berkman of the Fire...

(Airdate: 3/21/06)

A Girl Scout troop unites daughters with mothers who are serving time at the Gatesville Prison in...

(Airdate: 2/28/06)

Playwright Oakley Hall was on the verge of national recognition when a fall transformed his life in...

(Airdate: 2/21/06)

Disability divides couples in a nursing home; elders' sons and daughters must care for their parents...

(Airdate: 2/14/06)

A three-night riot in Rochester, N.Y., was the culmination of poverty, joblessness and racial...

(Airdate: 2/7/06)

Robert Williams led his hometown against the Ku Klux Klan and inspired the Black Power movement.

(Airdate: 1/17/06)

Three girls entangled in San Francisco's juvenile justice system.

(Airdate: 1/3/06)

Sheriff Ronald E. Hewett oversees the rural region of Brunswick County, North Carolina.

(Airdate: 12/27/05)

Five short films focus on pivotal moments in friendships.

(Airdate: 12/20/05)

The women of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minn., pursue a balanced life based on the Rule of...

(Airdate: 12/13/05)

North Korean refugees and activists escape their homeland and China on a secretive underground...

(Airdate: 11/29/05)

Three Latinas face challenges as they leave their families to pursue their dreams in the United...

(Airdate: 11/22/05)

Comic Ahmed Ahmed, Mayda del Valle, Hawaiian poet Haunani-Kay Trask and Kate Rigg share their views...

(Airdate: 11/15/05)

Twin sisters drift apart as one heads to America while the other embraces the Cuban revolution.

(Airdate: 11/8/05)

A family shares their reactions and changing attitudes on the military and global politics when they...

(Airdate: 10/25/05)

Cowboy Vern Sager and his family live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the Badlands of South...

(Airdate: 10/18/05)

Sergio Vieira de Mello devoted his life to global efforts while he was U.N. high commissioner for...

(Airdate: 10/11/05)

George Clinton expressed the cultural alienation of young African Americans with his band Parliament...

(Airdate: 6/14/05)

An artist rejected by his family because of his homosexuality gains a stronger sense of self from...

(Airdate: 6/7/05)

The razing of a Mexican-American village in downtown Los Angeles to make room for Dodger Stadium.

(Airdate: 5/31/05)

Hollywood stuntwomen for ``Wonder Woman'' and ``Xena: Warrior Princess'' struggle in a...

(Airdate: 5/24/05)

An experimental court in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which sentences offenders to job training, drug...

(Airdate: 5/17/05)

Modern-day Vietnam as seen through the eyes of eight young people who were born either at the end of...

(Airdate: 5/10/05)

Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines, shares her story.

(Airdate: 5/3/05)

A woman's last letter to her son coincides with the German seizure of her Ukrainian city in 1941.

(Airdate: 4/26/05)

The history of the Ramones, from the 1970s to their 2002 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of...

(Airdate: 4/12/05)

The life and career of jazz bassist and photographer Milt Hinton.

(Airdate: 4/5/05)

Africa's famous song ``Mbube'' inspired ``The Lion Sleeps Tonight.''

(Airdate: 4/5/05)

Musician George Clinton and his band Parliament Funkadelic expressed the cultural alienation of...

(Airdate: 3/29/05)

A storefront church in a poor neighborhood of Washington, D.C., provides hope for four parishioners.

(Airdate: 3/22/05)

Two elderly women share their political beliefs at a home for senior citizens.

(Airdate: 3/1/05)

Interviews with activists and participants of the first federally funded National Women's...

(Airdate: 2/22/05)

American-born Janet Rosenberg Jagan becomes president of Guyana in 1997.

(Airdate: 2/15/05)

Greg Smith, founder of On a Roll Talk Radio, discusses life and disabilities.

(Airdate: 2/1/05)

Four college students stage a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in 1960.

(Airdate: 1/25/05)

Cultures clash as a U.S. energy company buys an electric company in the former Soviet Republic of...

(Airdate: 1/11/05)

Albert Cullum teaches students to excel.

(Airdate: 1/4/05)

A gang member, a hustler and a drug dealer try to reform while on parole.

(Airdate: 12/28/04)

Short films include ``Fine Line Between Cute and Creepy,'' ``La Puppe,'' ``A Monster's Calling,''...

(Airdate: 12/21/04)

A factory worker questions his life; a Tokyo woman investigates her fellow commuters.

(Airdate: 12/14/04)

By state regulations, a 13-year-old Texas girl must stop coed wrestling after her next birthday.

(Airdate: 11/30/04)

Young girls are abducted from their villages and turned into sex slaves.

(Airdate: 11/23/04)

History of Los Angeles and its multicultural diversity.

(Airdate: 11/16/04)

The Taliban and the U.S. bombing campaign affects the lives of Afghan women.

(Airdate: 11/9/04)

People enjoy an annual polka festival in Gibbon, Minn.

(Airdate: 10/26/04)

Writer and illustrator Theodor Geisel rises to prominence as the innovative Dr. Seuss.

(Airdate: 8/18/04)

(Airdate: 6/15/04)

Kristina Boerger forms a lesbian choir in small-town Illinois.

(Airdate: 6/8/04)

American athletes become sumo wrestlers.

(Airdate: 6/1/04)

An East Indian immigrant pursues a divorced neighbor after his wife and daughter abandon him.

(Airdate: 5/27/04)

Reunited with her relatives, a young woman comes to terms with her father's death.

(Airdate: 5/11/04)

Southeast Asian refugees live the American experience.

(Airdate: 5/4/04)

Diverse people gather at a Los Angeles nightclub; a Chinese woman ponders her identity in America.

(Airdate: 4/27/04)

Hundreds of socialist revolutionaries, calling themselves the Weathermen, bomb the U.S. Capitol,...

(Airdate: 4/20/04)

Former Harvard professor and LSD experimenter, Richard Alpert, 70, is now Indian guru Ram Dass, a...

(Airdate: 4/13/04)

Israeli filmmaker David Fisher and his siblings search for their long-lost sister.

(Airdate: 4/6/04)

Piri Thomas chronicles his life through poetry, stories and performances.

(Airdate: 3/23/04)

An exploration of the World Bank's role in directing Zambia's economic policies.

(Airdate: 3/2/04)

Rape victim Joanna Katz tells her story of challenging the parole system to heal herself and to give...

(Airdate: 2/24/04)

Concert footage and interviews depict the life and career of singer Jimmy Scott.

(Airdate: 2/17/04)

Social clubs and organizations created by black professionals.

(Airdate: 2/10/04)

An exploration shows the impact of Nat Turner, leader of the 1831 slave rebellion, on understanding...

(Airdate: 1/27/04)

Two brothers continue to hope their mother will recover from a drug addiction; a man transforms...

(Airdate: 1/20/04)

Texan Curtis Boyd relinquishes his ministry in the 1960s to become a doctor, with the idea that all...

(Airdate: 1/13/04)

The exploits of the Hackberry Ramblers' band include a bayou crab boil and an appearance at the...

(Airdate: 12/30/03)

Vignettes on modern manhood include such topics as getting dumped, biking 70 miles to see a girl,...

(Airdate: 12/23/03)

The experiences of three Mormons during two-year missions in Germany.

(Airdate: 12/16/03)

A filmmaker turns to a psychologist, a comic, a rock band and actresses for insight into the poetry...

(Airdate: 12/9/03)

The female chamber ensemble, Eroica Trio, prepare for the debut of their latest work while balancing...

(Airdate: 11/25/03)

The legends of a California town.

(Airdate: 11/7/03)

The filmmaker chronicles her struggle to grieve for the father she never knew, a soldier who died in...

(Airdate: 11/4/03)

A Palestinian-American man returns to Palestine for an arranged marriage.

(Airdate: 10/28/03)

The experiences of Shaolin monks visiting the cities of New York, Houston and Las Vegas.

(Airdate: 10/21/03)

The dramas ``Broken Sky'' and ``Junkyard Saints'' explore the Latino experience of prism dreams,...

(Airdate: 10/14/03)

Artist Vik Muniz uses his knowledge of the history of photography to demonstrate how images can...

(Airdate: 6/3/03)

The challenges gay men face when becoming parents.

(Airdate: 5/27/03)

The journey of photographer Hansel Mieth, from Germany to the pages of Life magazine, where she set...

(Airdate: 5/20/03)

A threat to their homes prompts families in Blair, W.Va., to fight a local coal company.

(Airdate: 5/13/03)

Two mothers represent both sides of the gun control debate.

(Airdate: 5/6/03)

The story of Hawaiian surfer Rell Kapolioka'ehukai Sunn.

(Airdate: 4/23/03)

Four friends survive and resist during the Nazi occupation of France.

(Airdate: 4/22/03)

Filmmaker Freida Lee Mock's depiction of the life and career of author Anne Lamott.

(Airdate: 4/8/03)

Billie Holiday's song ``Strange Fruit'' continues to captivate musicians and civil rights advocates.

(Airdate: 4/1/03)

American Indian Beaver C'Bearing re-evaluates the importance of basketball during his senior year of...

(Airdate: 3/25/03)

America's dependence on immigrant labor is evident in Austin, Texas' day-labor program.

(Airdate: 2/25/03)

The dying blue-collar town of North Adams, Mass., unites locals and art luminaries and transforms...

(Airdate: 2/18/03)

John Wulp creates a school musical about his island community to heal a violent clash over arts...

(Airdate: 2/11/03)

A documentary illuminates the odd industry of soliciting people to send in poems to be set to music,...

(Airdate: 2/4/03)

Archival footage, interviews and animation depicts Maggie Kuhn's campaign against mandatory...

(Airdate: 11/9/01)

Prince Mohato faces responsibility and marriage when he is thrust upon the throne of Lesotho after...

(Airdate: 11/2/01)

The language and atmosphere at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

(Airdate: 10/26/01)

The carnival sideshow in Gibsonton, Fla.

(Airdate: 10/19/01)

HIV drug therapies have physical and psychological effects.

(Airdate: 10/12/01)

A Laotian shaman living in the United States struggles to keep his family connected to its culture...

(Airdate: 10/5/01)

American Indians and archaeologists battle over the remains of the former's ancestors; narrator...

(Airdate: 9/28/01)

The Turkish military wages an ethnic-cleansing campaign against the Kurds.

(Airdate: 9/21/01)

Personal stories depict the impact of U.S. immigration laws.

(Airdate: 9/14/01)

The Internet revolution; social impact of high technology.

(Airdate: 9/7/01)

The Confederate flag debate in South Carolina; history of the symbol.

(Airdate: 12/9/00)

Immigrant mourns cultural loss and retrieves cultural memory through his passions for food and film.

(Airdate: 11/27/00)

Adulthood experiences defy and reinforce childhood lessons; a carver creates a place for grieving...

(Airdate: 11/20/00)

Residents of Alabama's Sand Mountain use music to tell personal stories.

(Airdate: 11/13/00)

A silent film reel from the 1950s reconnects a Navajo family to its history.

(Airdate: 11/6/00)

An American family adopts a Korean orphan; an overworked photographer wants to sell a diner that...

Freedom-fighter Cecil Williams is an activist for the rights of gays.

A Japanese diplomat and his wife help Jewish refugees in World War II Lithuania.

Filmmaker Mark Steven Shepherd examines the media and spectator circus assembled at the O.J. Simpson...

In 1921 a quarantine hospital is established in Louisiana for people with leprosy.

Female motorcyclists are profiled.

Single women discuss raising a child.

Dwarf families explain the problems they face every day.

Filmmaker Laurel Chiten chronicles an author's journey from despair to renewed faith in Judaism.

A profile shows 10 Stanford University students in their freshman and senior years.

A Japanese diplomat and his wife help Jewish refugees in World War II Lithuania; a Vietnamese singer...

A couple divorce after the wife announces she is gay.

Gang activity in Appleton, Wis.

Stagehands outline their part in a production of Wagner's ``The Ring of the Nibelung.''

The birthing industry in the United States changes social and cultural beliefs about women.

A woman finds inspiration in an image of Jesus in a burnt tortilla; a blind jazz-critic befriends a...

Three women survive breast cancer.