The Island President will air next season on Independent Lens

Yesterday morning we woke up to the shocking news that President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives had resigned his office under duress. According to news reports and local sources, Nasheed faced the choice of using the military to quell a violent demonstration or stepping down to avoid bloodshed. In line with his long history of peaceful activism, he chose the latter.

We have heard from eyewitnesses that Nasheed was initially being held under military arrest at the Presidential residence in Malé, the capital. We were told that before Nasheed stepped down, demonstrators loyal to former dictator, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, stood outside the President’s office shouting “Gayoom! Gayoom!”

In addition to forcing his ouster, demonstrators stormed the national television station, detained journalists and replaced independent programming with that of the station run by Gayoom’s allies. It was reported to us, that last night the streets of Malé were eerily quiet with a military curfew imposed on the capital.

Today, Nasheed spoke at a rally for the Maldivian Democratic Party and then led a peaceful march on the streets of the capital. The protesters were met by police in camouflage, with helmets, truncheons and tear gas. Many injuries are being reported.

As filmmakers who spent two years off and on with President Nasheed while making The Island President, we witnessed a leader committed to transparent governance, multi-party democracy, and the struggle for human rights. This struggle includes his leadership in the fight against climate change that so threatens the Maldives and the rest of us.

This is not the first time that Nasheed has suffered a political setback in his fight for justice in the Maldives. We expect this is just the next chapter. We are deeply concerned for Nasheed’s safety, we stand in solidarity with him and hope others will join us.

Read former President Mohamed Nasheed‘s op-ed piece, published in Wednesday’s New York Times.

Watch the trailer for The Island President below

The documentary is the product of Swedish journalists, who came to the U.S. to document the anti-war and Black Power movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film combines music, original 16mm footage, and contemporary audio interviews from leading African American artists, activists, musicians, and scholars.

ITVS-funded filmmakers and staff rally for lunch at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT

Sundance 2012 was a record-breaking year year for ITVS and Independent Lens. Six ITVS funded films screened in the documentary competitions and all six were honored with Sundance awards. (ITVS had had seven films playing at Sundance in 2004; six films in 2002; and eight films in 1997 for those interested in banner years).

 Adding to that powerful showing, midway through Sundance two ITVS-supported films received Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary including Hell and Back Again by Danfung Dennis (coming to Independent Lens in May) and If a Tree Falls by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman (broadcast on POV).  We were able to celebrate in person as Danfung and Sam (a producer on The House I Live In) were both in Park City.  Even the Utah snowstorms couldn’t slow our momentum because that’s one heck of a week.

From L to R: Danfung Dennis (Hell and Back Again), Lois Vossen, and Sam Cullman (If a Tree Falls)

Independent Lens and ITVS held an intimate lunch to honor our 2012 Sundance and Academy Award-nominated filmmakers. Stepping away from the noise and full-on energy that is Sundance, we wanted to take a moment to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary work of the filmmakers.

Four of the six ITVS films at Sundance are already slated for broadcast on Independent Lens following theatrical distribution, including Grand Jury Prize winner The House I Live In by Eugene Jarecki, Audience Award winner The Invisible War by Kirby Dick, Special Jury Prize winner Love Free or Die by Macky Alston, and Detropia by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, which was honored for best editing. In addition, the Independent Lens film The Island President by Jon Shenk, Richard Berge, and Bonni Cohen screened in a Sundance sidebar program. These five films will make for an exceptional new season of Independent Lens — and they will be joined by a stunning array of other documentaries coming to completion this year.

The two additional ITVS-funded films that premiered in the World Cinema Documentary Competition and took awards are Putin’s Kiss (Best Cinematography Award) and 5 Broken Cameras (Best Directing).

Sundance 2012 is a wrap, but the impact of these extraordinary films is just beginning. We have an exceptional year ahead, lead by the power of independent storytelling.

The film takes a look at a group of men and women — most of them former gang leaders and ex-cons — that are trying to “interrupt” shootings and protect their communities from the violence they once employed. Watch the trailer for the The Interrupters below:

Join the filmmakers and FRONTLINE for a live chat on the documentary on Wednesday, February 15.

The organization has supported a slate of documentaries that shine a unique light on the history of African American activism. Several of the films will air this month on Independent Lens. 

February is Black History Month.  It’s an important time for public media, because the heritage months — as artificial as they seem to some, including ITVS-funded filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman, whose film More than A Month tracks his playful yet serious quest to end Black History Month — act as public reminders of our mission to bring underrepresented voices into the mainstream and ensure that the diversity of the nation is reflected on television.

One glance at public television’s offerings reminds us that American history is black history and black history is American history, so intertwined and inseparable are the African-American experience and the life of the United States.

What you’ll find on public television in February are nine new, original programs across PBS series like Frontline, Independent Lens, and Great Performances, alongside encore presentations of landmark programs like Freedom Riders. 

Among the premieres are four ITVS programs that together represent part of what’s special about public television: not just telling stories that should be told and heard, but looking for new and innovative ways to tell them.  And making sure communities can use these stories to engage, face-to-face and online, in ways that celebrate, debate, and most of all connect.

On the innovation front, the mobile app More than a Mapp brings the spirit of More than a Month to mobile devices, providing a fun and interactive (and year-round!) way to learn about Black History through landmarks and historical sites nationwide.  We’re also piloting a new online screening tool — sort of a virtual Community Cinema event, moderated by local public television stations, where people can watch a film together and discuss in real time — with selected Black History month programming through February.

Back in the brick-and-mortar world, Community Cinema is on track to host 200 screenings in January (the biopic Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock) and February (More Than a Month).  And that doesn’t include the selected outreach events to accompany the ITVS-funded The Interrupters,a groundbreaking look at the urban cycle of violence in Chicago and one of the most talked about films in recent history, which airs on Frontline on February 14^th.

We’re also excited about two international programs that shed surprising light on the African-American experience: February’s The Black Power Mix Tape, a retelling of the Black Power Movement through lost footage filmed by Swedish journalists, and the January broadcast of Have You Heard from Johannesburg, a five-part look at the global movement to end apartheid in South Africa.

All in all, it’s an emblematic way for ITVS to start a year filled with programming that goes straight to the heart of public media’s mission: sparking all-American, year-round, year-after-year conversations about who we are, where we’ve been, where we’re going, and who we want to be.

The House I Live In premiered last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. The film weaves together director Eugene Jarecki’s personal narrative with America’s war on drugs. Here, producers including Sam Cullman, Melinda Shopsin, Danny Glover, and director Eugene Jarecki — reflect on the film and its Sundance premiere.

Danfung Dennis woke up this morning in Park City as an Academy Award nominated filmmaker for his documentary Hell and Back Again. The film weaves together two overlapping narratives of a Marine at war on the front and in recovery at home. BTB caught up with the filmmaker earlier today on Main St at the Sundance Film Festival.

Hell and Back Again will air on May 24 on Independent Lens.

Find the complete list of nominated film here.