Independent Lens

Episode 1

Best of Enemies

Mon, Oct 3, 2016 87 mins

Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal (2015) is a documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. 'Best of Enemies' delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, 'What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?'

Episode 2

Meet the Patels

Fri, Dec 16, 2016

Actor Ravi Patel, whose traditional Hindu parents are eager for him to find a mate, enters the semi-arranged marriage system in America.

Episode 3

Best and Most Beautiful Things

Mon, Jan 2, 2017

Episode 4

Containment

Mon, Jan 9, 2017

Episode 5

What Was Ours

Mon, Jan 16, 2017

A tribal elder and Vietnam vet, who hasn't left the Wind River Indian Reservation in over 40 years, visits the underground archives of Chicago's Field Museum with two young Arapaho to explore ancestral objects kept in boxes for many years. Together they try to learn how these artifacts vanished from their tribe in the first place.

Episode 6

The Witness

Mon, Jan 23, 2017

Episode 7

Birth of a Movement

Mon, Feb 6, 2017 60 mins

The story of William Monroe Trotter, the nearly forgotten editor of a Boston black newspaper who tried to ban the controversial film The Birth of a Nation (1915).

Episode 20

Real Boy

Mon, Jun 19, 2017

A transgender teen works to repair a strained relationship with his family and forges a friendship with folk singer Joe Stevens.