Independent Lens - Season 14

First aired: 10/8/2012 24 episodes

Episodes

1. As Goes Janesville

Aired: 10/8/2012

Filmed in 10 countries, the series follows Nicholas Kristof and celebrity activists America Ferrera, Diane Lane, Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Gabrielle Union and Olivia Wilde on a journey to tell the stories of inspiring, courageous individuals. Across the globe oppression is being confronted, and real meaningful solutions are being fashioned through health care, education, and economic empowerment for women and girls.

2. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Part 2)

Aired: 10/2/2012

4. Love Free or Die

Aired: 10/29/2012

5. Solar Mamas

Aired: 11/5/2012

6. Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream

Aired: 11/12/2012

7. Soul Food Junkies

Aired: 1/14/2013

Food traditions are hard to change, especially when they're passed on from generation to generation. Baffled by his dad's unwillingness to change his traditional soul food diet in the face of a health crisis, filmmaker Byron Hurt sets out to learn more about this rich culinary tradition and its relevance to black cultural identity.

8. Beauty Is Embarrassing

Aired: 1/21/2013

Raised in the Tennessee mountains, Wayne White started his career as a cartoonist in NYC. He quickly found success as one of the creators of the Pee-wee's Playhouse TV show which soon led to more work design some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Recently his word paintings featuring pithy and and often sarcastic text statements finely crafted onto vintage landscape paintings have made him a darling of the fine art world. The movie chronicles the vaulted highs and crushing lows of an artist struggling to find peace and balance between his professional work and his personal art. This is especially complicated for a man who struggles with the virtues he most often mocks in his art...Vanity, ego and fame.

9. The Revisionaries

Aired: 1/28/2013

The Texas State Board of Education rewrites teaching and textbook standards once every decade.

10. The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights

Aired: 2/18/2013

11. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Aired: 2/25/2013

Profiling Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei, who helped design Beijing's iconic Bird's Nest Olympic stadium and later criticized the Games as party propaganda. His opposition to his country's autocratic rule, which he voices in his art and on social media, has caused him many difficulties, as filmmaker Alison Klayman witnesses during the making of this documentary: Government authorities shut down Ai's blog, beat him up, demolish his studio and hold him in secret detention for 81 days.

12. The House I Live In; As I Am

Aired: 4/8/2013

13. Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines

Aired: 4/15/2013

Wonder Women! explores the nation’s long-term love affair with comic book superheroes and raises questions about the possibilities and contradictions of heroines within the genre. The film goes behind the scenes with Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, Gloria Steinem, Kathleen Hanna, comic writers and artists, and others who offer an enlightening and entertaining counterpoint to the male-dominated superhero genre.

14. The Island President

Aired: 4/22/2013

15. The Undocumented

Aired: 4/29/2013

Thousands of migrants have perished in recent years while trying to cross the unforgiving Sonora desert in search of a better life in the United States. The film gives a face to some of the dead, and follows them on their long journey home.

16. Seeking Asian Female

Aired: 5/6/2013

Two strangers — an aging white man and a young Chinese woman — pursue a marriage brokered by the Internet. They get more than they bargained for when she moves to America to be his bride in this quirky, appealing documentary.

17. The Invisible War

Aired: 5/13/2013

The most shameful and best-kept secret in the U.S. Military? The epidemic of rape and sexual assault within the ranks. An American female soldier in a combat zone is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.

18. Detropia

Aired: 5/27/2013

Can the Motor City rise from its ashes? A dynamic cluster of local innovators, entrepreneurs, and proud, self-proclaimed "hustlers” are poised to resurrect Detroit. The result could be a radically new city for the postindustrial age.

19. The Revolutionary Optimists

Aired: 6/17/2013

Amlan Ganguly, a lawyer-turned social entrepreneur, has sown hope in the poorest neighborhoods of Calcutta by empowering children to become leaders in improving health, health, transforming their communities for the better.