Recent Talkback About Independent Lens This Month

Always thought-provoking, sometimes controversial, Independent Lens brings you documentaries, dramas, shorts and Web-exclusive projects made by independent thinkers. Check out some of the recent Talkback from viewers about films airing this month.

ADJUST YOUR COLOR:
The Truth of Petey Greene

“What an excellent documentary. In this age of political correctness, I doubt very much Petey Greene would have a voice on the radio let alone TV. Thank you PBS and Independent Lens. I always look forward to the pieces that are aired.”
Posted by: HJV on February 7, 2009

“I Tivo Independent Lens and watch it when I can. I can’t tell you have much you have ignited my soul with such an awe-inspiring documentary. Petey Greene jumps off the screen and into your heart. Truly Amazing!”
Posted by: Dick Burl on February 6, 2009

“I want to thank PBS for presenting this excellent documentary about Petey Greene. I grew up in a suburb of Detroit during the 60′s and never knew about Petey Greene growing up. I admire his being so outspoken during those turbulent times.”
Posted by: Ellen Tippit on February 5, 2009

View more Talkback and submit your own for ADJUST YOUR COLOR >>

TULIA, TEXAS:

“I was appalled by the story. It is very scary to know this could happen anywhere. I believe the prison system needs an overhaul for anyone charged with a drug charge. At times, in this nation, you do get overzealous law enforcement officials that will do anything to get a promotion or move up within their law enforcement agency.”
Posted by: Carol Stevens on February 11, 2009

“I have never seen anything as sad as what happened and is still happening to the folks in Tulia. I’d like to know how many African Americans work at decent paying jobs there, like bank tellers or in policing or any other jobs that can make a man or woman feel proud of how they’re contributing to their community. I don’t think everyone that lives there is racist but I do think there is a ‘better than’ attitude amongst the people.”
Posted by: Sharon Lamont on February 11, 2009

“I saw this documentary and was shocked, I am grateful to the filmmakers to bring this mess to our attention. It makes you take a look at your own life and think. That could have been me or my son. Kudos to the attorney’s who gave these people back the lives and their families for having the conviction to stand by their loved ones side.”
Posted by: Robin on February 13, 2009

“Racism and segregation are alive and thriving. See Atlanta. See Memphis. What’s interesting is to compare African Americans’ struggle in Tulia post-agrarianism to blacks’ struggle in America post-slavery… Here we are today with a ‘black’ president whose house is within the jurisdiction with the highest child poverty rate and homeless rate in the country. And 2.0 million African Americans live there. Someone somewhere must find that perverse. Hats off to the filmmakers. Keep ‘em coming!”
Posted by: Paul Nizov on February 11, 2009

View more Talkback and submit your own for TULIA, TEXAS >>

Tags: African American, Petey Greene, Texas

Watch BILLY STRAYHORN: Lush Life Tonight on Independent Lens

Winner for Best Documentary at the 2008 News and Documentary Emmys:

BILLY STRAYHORN: Lush Life: As Duke Ellington’s co-composer, arranger, and right-hand man, Billy Strayhorn wrote some of the greatest American music of the 20th century. But as a gay man in the ’40s and ’50s, Strayhorn had to lead a discreet existence, while Ellington played to thunderous applause on center stage. BILLY STRAYHORN: Lush Life tells the story of the unheralded man who changed jazz and popular music forever, maintaining artistic and personal integrity, while challenging prejudice along the way.

Check out the preview below:

BILLY STRAYHORN: Lush Life airs tonight at 10:00 PM (check local listings) on Independent Lens on PBS

Tags: gay, jazz, online video

BRONX PRINCESS Premieres at Berlinale

Potsdamer Platz at the Berlinale film festival.

Musa Syeed and Yoni Brook screen their film BRONX PRINCESS at Berlinale.

We just stepped off the flight from Berlin, where we had the privilege to present our new film BRONX PRINCESS at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival.

Our film is about a teenager’s journey from the Bronx to her parent’s royal palace in Ghana, and ultimately to college in the United States. Our film’s coming-of-age story placed us in the youth-focused “Generation” section of the festival, where we screened alongside films from countries including Russia, South Korea and Israel.

As one of the only documentary films in our section, we were surrounded by narrative shorts, some shot on 35mm film and others using animation. The world premiere of our film was at IDFA in Amsterdam, the world’s largest documentary festival, but in Berlin the audience did not expect to see a documentary in the youth section.

In fact, a common question at our Q&A was “Is this a documentary or fiction film?” or “Did you script any of the scenes?” Some people said that our film was crafted too cinematically to be a documentary, or that our character’s outbursts seemed too good to be true.

We think their reaction speaks to a larger issue: are documentaries misunderstood by young people or are they just not made for young audiences? One festival programmer from Canada told us, “It’s very difficult to find documentaries that youth want to watch.” Documentaries made for and about young people can be didactic and value their educational mandate over engaging storytelling.  As filmmakers in our 20s, we felt connected to our protagonist’s perspective on the world, and we tried to use a cinematic language that would be relevant to audiences young and old.

Judging from the audience’s laughs and gasps, BRONX PRINCESS was received as well as any fiction short. The best litmus test was reaction from young people, like a 14-year-old student journalist who approached us after the screening. Every year she scans the Berlinale catalogue for a film about Africa that doesn’t dwell on poverty or strife. She beamed as she told us how her own father lives in Ghana, and how she had never before seen a film that spoke to her as German-African. She didn’t need to ask us if our film was a documentary.

-Yoni Brook and Musa Syeed, filmmakers of BRONX PRINCESS, premiering this upcoming season of P.O.V. on PBS. A SON’S SACRIFICE, their previous ITVS funded film, premiered on Independent Lens last year.

Tags: Berlinale, film festival, P.O.V.

UNMISTAKEN CHILD Premieres at Berlinale

A crowd gathers around the red carpet at Berlinale Palast, the location for all gala ceremonies.

Producer Ilil Alexander and director/producer Nati Baratz at the premiere of UNMISTAKEN CHILD with Tenzin Zopa, the film's main subject.

Berlin––a cosmopolitan, exciting capital, a city of culture with international appeal. In the middle of it all: Berlinale–not only the city’s largest cultural event, but also one of the most important dates on the international film industry’s calendar. Ilil Alexander, producer of the ITVS-funded film UNMISTAKEN CHILD, recounts her experience meeting the film’s main character: Tenzin Zopa, a shy and gifted disciple of a great Tibetan meditator, who unexpectedly is appointed to lead the search for the reincarnation of his late master.

It’s a full house for our premiere and Nati Baratz, the director and producer, is invited on stage. He is so excited and can hardly talk. It is a significant moment to see him so excited and happy. After more than five and a half years, he did everything possible to make this film against all odds. It’s not a coincidence that no one else could have managed this project before him, which followed the real-time search for reincarnation for months and months. He asks the audience to stay after the screening because there’s a surprise.

I can see Tenzin Zopa sitting in his seat. I can’t imagine how it is for him, to watch on screen the journey he’s been on since October 2001.

About 104 minutes pass and Nati takes the stage and his voice is more excited than before. He gratefully thanks all our co-producers around the world. He then thanks Geshe Tenzin Zopa, the “surprise,” which was followed by roaring applause as he got on stage.

This very humble person first thanked everyone, wished a happy long life to all and made everyone laugh. One cannot but notice those qualities of a child-like soul, naivety, curiosity and peaceful acceptance combined with the qualities of a listener, of a father of a wise old person––a rare combination I haven’t encountered for a very long time. I can tell because I laugh, I hold the camera to capture this moment but I also feel tears in my eyes.

But the most enjoyable moment for me was later that night when Tenzin gently offered to make a greeting before we ate dinner. He gave thanks for the food, the warm place we were sitting, our health and other beautiful notions. He quietly explained how every item on our plate was there thanks to the generosity and contribution of so many people, the ones who raised the beans and the ones who carried and prepared them, and those who served them on our plate, and so on, paying attention to every detail. This made the dinner so meaningful just because of what it was, regardless of the great premiere we just had.

From now on, whenever I eat, I’ll always remember, it’s not just “us” eating. It’s the 84,000 organisms, all the germs and bacteria that help our body function, and we must take care of them, feed them properly.

As more than breath-taking landscapes, rare scenes and very dramatic moments, the heart of the film, for me, is the tender soul of its main character, Tenzin Zopa. Regardless of what happened, whether he just lost his old master, or just found his reincarnation again, he is always full of compassion for others.

- Ilil Alexander, producer of UNMISTAKEN CHILD

Tags: Berlinale, film festival, Tibet

Independent Lens Presents Community Voices

Independent Lens and ITVS Community are pleased to present Community Voices: short videos developed by independent filmmakers and community partners from around the United States.

From a flea market to the Democratic National Convention to an independent recording studio, emerging and first-time filmmakers provide new perspectives on democracy in America today.

Contributing partners include GenerationEngage, The Public Square, Kartemquin Films, Independent Feature Project (IFP) Chicago, Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV), the Columbia College Television Department and Kentucky Educational Television.

Watch and listen to Community Voices >>

Check out one of the videos below:

YOUNG BLACK VOTER traces the personal journey of aspiring Kentucky filmmaker Lavel White from a disengaged youth—who occasionally committed petty crimes—to a hopeful young adult, actively involved in the political process and community issues.

Tags: African American, online video, voting

ITVS International Films on Caachi

IRANIAN KIDNEY BARGAIN SALE, one of the ITVS International programs now available on Caachi.

This past week Caachi, an online video destination for independent film fans, has made room for even more ITVS International content. The site now features 9 feature-length films and 6 shorts.

Supporting Caachi means supporting the filmmakers directly, according to Tom Hicks, co-founder. Caachi’s new and improved flash-based widget features video playback and user comments within the interface and allows fans to share and post the widget to social networking sites.

“This is one aspect of how we want to leverage web technologies for marketing purposes. Our path to success will always be based on helping independent filmmakers market their films in a way that actually makes them money,” says Hicks.

Visit the ITVS International Channel
on Caachi >>

Tags: caachi, digital, online video

In the News: The Latest on TULIA, TEXAS

TULIA, TEXAS airs tonight at 10:00 PM on Independent Lens on PBS (check local listings). Check out the latest media coverage below:

“It’s appropriate that the excellent documentary TULIA, TEXAS (three and a half stars) has such a deliberate pace. If the documentary that told the painful story of this town had had a showy or loud style, the result would have been overkill.”
Read full review >>

“Too often, good stories are overtold by the people behind the camera. By contrast, Cassandra Herrman and Kelly Whelan know that the story of 46 people who were subjected to trumped-up drug charges in a town of 5,117 doesn’t need a lot of fancy gimmicks.”
Read full review >>

“From its start, the film lays out discrepancies in perspectives and effects.”
Read full review >>

“As compelling as any feature film, this documentary looks at an undercover agent who put 46 citizens of a small town in jail for drug dealing. All but seven were black citizens from the “other” side of the tracks.”
Read more >>

“Tonight’s must-see TULIA, TEXAS: The beauty of this richly crafted documentary is its even-handed approach.”
Read more >>

Tags: Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Texas

Watch TULIA, TEXAS Tonight on Independent Lens

TULIA TEXAS: A lone undercover cop moves into a small farming town. By the end of the blazing summer of 1999, 46 people are arrested for selling cocaine––nearly all of them African American. It was heralded as one of the biggest drug busts in Texas history, until a team of lawyers set out to uncover the truth. 

Check out the preview below:

Check out a clip from tonight’s broadcast below:

TULIA, TEXAS, airs tonight at 10:00 PM (check local listings) on Independent Lens on PBS

Tags: African American, online video, Texas

Opening Night at Ambulante with Geoffrey Smith

Geoffrey Smith, filmmaker of THE ENGLISH SURGEON

Cinépolis Theater in Mexico City, where THE ENGLISH SURGEON opened this year's festival.

I’m screening my film THE ENGLISH SURGEON at Ambulante, which begins in Mexico City and then goes onto some 20 towns and cities across Mexico for two months. Using Blu-ray DVDs and digital projectors, the festival organizers show a selection of incredible documentaries from around the world that most people in these communities would never otherwise hear about, let alone see.

At Hotdocs last April, I met Elena Fortes who runs Ambulante. She is passionate about documentary and has assembled a superb team of people who don’t get much sleep for three months each year. It was a real thrill when she told me three weeks ago that THE ENGLISH SURGEON would be the opening night premiere at the festival and they’d fly me out.

I had been to Mexico last year for the Expression en Corto Festival but haven’t spent any time in Mexico City. Arriving in the heart of this incredible metropolis, I was immediately struck by its vibrancy and beauty. I realized that I had seen very few images of a world in which some 25 million people call home and that I knew even less about those who lived there.

The next day I did about four hours of press interviews for the premiere and was struck by how many people really seemed to have embraced the deeper side of the film. I started to feel a strong affinity with the Mexican sense of humor and sensitivity, and this feeling has grown across my five days here.

The premiere was very exciting as it was held in a lovely cinema called Cinépolis. Elena’s red T-shirted team were everywhere, and given the high level of press interest Ambulante had generated (so crucial in our age of infinite distractions), so many people turned up that they had to open up another screen in the same complex.

Several margaritas later, I embarked on my well-worn ritual of standing outside the cinema doors waiting for that familiar bass note to signal the rolling of the credits. Like most rituals, it has a comforting feeling to it.

The questions I was asked that night were probably the best and most varied I had encountered in over 20 festivals. My reaction to the audience can be as emotional as theirs to the film, and that is a glow I always feel very privileged to experience.

Over the next few days there were four other screenings, interviews with press and a wonderful master class with a great bunch of film students. Their questions were simply fantastic. My growing sense of affinity with most things Mexican kept me laughing and I learned a great deal about this fabulous country through a group of very lovely people. My heartfelt thanks go to Elena, Roxanne, Meghan, Annaliese, Eva, Amanda, Vanessa, Natalia, Martha, Daniela, Greg and all the people who came along to see the film.

What’s next? I am writing this blog entry at the local airport as I am about to spend nine days with the Tarahumara Indians in the high Sierra Madre Mountains––three hours north of Mexico City. I have become mildly obsessed with their culture of running huge distances as a form of sacred and cultural expression, and from what I saw at the Anthropological museum yesterday I am set for a most thrilling and beautiful experience. The snow in London seems very far away…

- Geoffrey Smith, filmmaker of THE ENGLISH SURGEON airing this year on P.O.V. (check local listings)

Tags: film festival, Mexico, P.O.V.

Filmmakers Delve Into History of Faubourg Tremé

Filmmaker Dawn Logsdon

Producer Lucie Faulkor, writer Lolis Eric Elie, director Dawn Logsdon and cinematographer Bobby Shepard, filming after Hurricane Katrina.

Nestled at the edge of New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter, Faubourg Tremé is one of America’s oldest African American neighborhoods. This once vibrant neighborhood was the birthplace of the Civil Rights movement in the South and the home of jazz. Shot largely before Hurricane Katrina, FAUBOURG TREMÉ: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans pays tribute to what African American communities have contributed––even under the most hostile of conditions. Throughout the month of February, it will air on PBS (check local listings).

Filmmaker Dawn Logsdon recently sat down to discuss the film and why she approached ITVS for funding. Read the Q&A below:

What inspired you to make a film about Faubourg Tremé?
It’s an amazing place with an amazing history that almost no one knew––even in New Orleans. I had a personal connection to the area because my father was a local historian who had dedicated his life to uncovering this forgotten history and used to drag me along as a kid to talk with the old people in French and translate old tombs. My co-director/writer Lolis Eric Elie had a more recent personal connection in that he’d moved to the neighborhood a few years before and was renovating an old house there. I think we picked the Tremé neighborhood because in many ways it epitomized the best and the worst of New Orleans for us. On the one hand, for centuries, it’s been a wellspring of incredible multiracial creativity and cultural exchange. On the other hand, that same history is littered with tragic failures and brutal oppression and the contemporary neighborhood was reeling from the effects of that history.

What were some of the challenges of making this film?
1. What I wanted to capture were the many ways past and present come together. That’s incredibly hard to do for an entire neighborhood because it meant bringing together over 200 years of very complex history, complex themes and an array of historical and contemporary characters. We struggled with how to do that for a long time and finally in the summer of 2005 we had a cut we were pretty happy with. Then the levees broke and flooded 80% of our city, including my own neighborhood and parts of Faubourg Tremé. That year was definitely our low point. We had to relocate, rebuild our own lives, and at the same time re-conceive an already complicated film to include a one more huge, unanticipated storyline. 2. Fundraising- especially before Katrina when most major funders would tell us “ it wasn’t a national story.” 3. Feeding a vegetarian cameraman in the middle of a disaster zone.

How did your background shape the making of this film?
I’m white and Lolis is black. As children of the 60’s, we belong to the first “desegregation generation” in the South. Both of us grew up in families that were very active in the Civil Rights movement and the movement permeated our childhoods. I was sent to an almost all black elementary school and Lolis and his sister were the first black children to attend a fancy all-white private school. Lucie Faulknor, our co-producer, was a recent transplant to New Orleans from San Francisco and brought her newcomer’s eyes to the story. So of course our backgrounds influenced what we thought was important about Faubourg Tremé. In my memory of the last several years, we were almost always in agreement about the Civil Rights focus of the film and instead we argued constantly about the way to tell that story. I’m more drawn to characters and human emotion. Lolis is more drawn to facts, especially facts told as succiently as possible by experts. I don’t know if that’s the difference between my training as a filmmaker and his as a print journalist or just some fundamental difference in the way we interpret the world. I do know that Lucie was frequently the mediator and also the one who continually pointed out things that we as New Orleanians took for granted but that a national audience wasn’t going to understand. The result of all those arguments I think is a strong film that blends all of our outlooks and created a lifelong bond among us.

Why did you work with ITVS to fund your film? How did you first hear about us?
I had edited several ITVS funded films including the WEATHER UNDERGROUND and HOPE ALONG THE WIND: The Life of Harry Hay, so I already knew about ITVS and more specifically about the LINCS initiative. LINCs seemed like a perfect fit for us because it pairs projects with a regional focus with local PBS stations. We ended up with two partner stations––first, WYES in New Orleans, and then after Hurricane Katrina, LPB in Baton Rouge came to our rescue.

Check out a preview of the film below:

FAUBOURG TREMÉ: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans
Airing this month on PBS (check local listings)

Tags: African American, New Orleans, online video, PBS