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 Independent Lens Launches Its Most Ambitious Season Yet 
The fall 2003/spring 2004 season — our most ambitious to date, consisting of 29 nights of new documentary, feature and short indie films — will launch in October with this season’s host, actor/director Don Cheadle. An involved IFP board member as well as a well-known face to film and TV audiences (Ocean’s Eleven, E.R.), Cheadle is an impassioned champion of independent film and we’re thrilled to have him on board as the new on-screen host. Says Cheadle, “I was absolutely delighted when ITVS offered me this gig. I had caught a few of this season’s films and was really impressed at how unique they each were. I’m a very passionate believer in the power of independent filmmaking — filmmaking that truly represents the totality of who we are in this country. Now more than ever, with people being intimidated against speaking out and with huge conglomerates controlling more and more of what we see and hear, people deserve the chance to see these kinds of films. And the great thing about independent lens is that anybody with a TV, from Maine to Alabama or wherever you happen to live, can go on the incredible journey where these films take you.” And our first season was truly an incredible journey — from the tiny Maine island depicted in ON THIS ISLAND to the hills of West Virginia in RAZING APPALACHIA to the migrant worker community in Austin, Texas depicted in LOS TRABAJADORES/THE WORKERS. Our fall/spring lineup promises even more adventure. Some of the places we’ll visit in next season’s films include Livermore, California, a quirky town lovingly dissected in Rachel Raney and David Murray’s LIVERMORE; Martha’s Vineyard, whose exclusive upper class African American enclave is explored in Stanley Nelson’s fascinating A PLACE OF OUR OWN and Germany, where young Mormon missionaries are the subject of Nancy du Plessis’ GET THE FIRE! Two of the biggest hits of our past season were the music films OFF THE CHARTS: The Song-Poem Story and STRANGE FRUIT. This season we’ll feature four documentaries about musicians —JIMMY SCOTT: If You Only Knew, an acclaimed portrait of the recently rediscovered jazz great; EROICA, about the glamorous all-woman chamber music trio; THE AMASONG CHOIR: Singing Out, about a lesbian/feminist choral singing group; and MAKE ‘EM DANCE: The Hackberry Ramblers about a swinging group of “agin’ Cajuns.” We’ll explore the impact that the pivotal events of the 1960s still have on our lives in four powerful documentaries — Tracy Dros Tragos’s heart-wrenching BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY about her attempts to get to know her father, a soldier killed in Vietnam; RAM DASS: Fierce Grace about the counter-culture figure’s journey from Harvard professor to spiritual leader to stroke survivor and philosopher on aging; the award-winning THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, about the infamous movement of student revolutionaries; and LIFE MATTERS about a rural Texas preacher who evolved into a courageous pro-choice doctor even before Roe v. Wade. We’re also adding some fiction films to our lineup this season, including two new installments of Carlos Avila’s acclaimed FOTO-NOVELAS and COSMOPOLITAN, a delightful romantic comedy drama about an Indian man (Roshan Seth) and his quirky neighbor (Carol Kane). The lives of three artists and poets are examined in EVERY CHILD IS BORN A POET: The Life and Times of Piri Thomas; LOADED GUN: Life, and Death, and Dickinson and WORST POSSIBLE ILLUSION: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz. We’ll explore the Asian American experience in DEATH OF A SHAMAN, DOUBLE EXPOSURE, ONE NIGHT AT THE GRAND STAR and REFUGEE as well as the martial arts in SHAOLIN ULYSSES: Kung Fu Monks In America and SUMO EAST AND WEST. And that’s just the beginning. So join us again this fall, Tuesdays at 10 p.m., for the best indie films on television. View the INDEPENDENT LENS fall 2003 schedule |
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