Independent Lens

Episode 1

Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz

Thu, Oct 16, 2003 60 mins

Episode 2

Foto-Novelas 2: Broken Sky/Junkyard Saints

Tue, Oct 21, 2003 27 mins

Episode 3

Shaolin Ulysses: Kungfu Monks in America

Tue, Oct 28, 2003

Episode 4

A Wedding in Ramallah

Tue, Nov 4, 2003

Episode 5

Be Good, Smile Pretty

Tue, Nov 11, 2003 52 mins

Episode 6

Livermore

Tue, Nov 25, 2003

Episode 7

Eroica!

Tue, Dec 9, 2003 60 mins

Episode 8

Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson

Tue, Dec 16, 2003

Episode 9

Get the Fire! Young Mormon Missionaries Abroad

Tue, Dec 23, 2003

Three young Mormon men, age 19, embark on a two-year rite of passage in Germany as part of a long-standing worldwide effort by Mormon missionaries to spread their faith at home and abroad.

Episode 10

Man Bites Shorts

Tue, Dec 30, 2003

Episode 11

Make'em Dance: The Hackberry Ramblers' Story

Tue, Jan 13, 2004

Episode 12

Life Matters

Tue, Jan 20, 2004

Episode 13

Why Can't We Be a Family Again?/Downpour Resurfacing

Tue, Jan 27, 2004

Episode 14

Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property

Tue, Feb 10, 2004

Episode 15

A Place of Our Own

Tue, Feb 17, 2004

Episode 16

Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew

Tue, Feb 24, 2004 76 mins

An intimate portrait of 76-year-old jazz vocal legend Jimmy Scott. The film explores Scott's odyssey of loss and redemption through reminiscence, song, and lush Japanese travelogue.

Episode 17

Sentencing the Victim

Tue, Mar 2, 2004

Episode 18

T-Shirt Travels

Tue, Mar 23, 2004

Episode 19

Every Child Is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Piri Thomas

Tue, Apr 6, 2004 59 mins

Episode 20

Love Inventory

Tue, Apr 13, 2004

Episode 21

Ram Dass: Fierce Grace

Tue, Apr 20, 2004

Episode 22

The Weather Underground

Tue, Apr 27, 2004

Episode 23

One Night at the Grand Star/Double Exposure

Tue, May 4, 2004

Episode 24

Refugee

Tue, May 11, 2004

Episode 25

Death of a Shaman

Thu, May 27, 2004

Episode 26

Cosmopolitan

Tue, Jun 1, 2004

Episode 27

Sumo East and West

"Sumo East and West" is a feature documentary about Americans in the ancient Japanese sport of sumo wrestling. Sumo is not only the national sport of Japan but a centuries-old cultural treasure that is literally part of the Shinto religion. Yet this highly traditional world is facing profound changes due to the postwar influx of foreign images and ideas in Japanese culture. At the same time other changes in sumo are being prompted by its growing popularity in the West, where its adherents are lobbying for sumo's inclusion in the Olympic Games even as other promoters are arranging amateur sumo tournaments in venues like Las Vegas casinos - tournaments that not surprisingly bear little resemblance to the sport's Japanese forebear. "Sumo East and West" takes us into this world through the story of Wayne Vierra of Hawaii, aka Kamakiiwa, a former professional sumo wrestler in Japan whose pro career was cut short by injury, but who rebounded to become a champion in the growing world of amateur sumo. The film also features the Hawaii-born superstars of professional sumo: Konishiki, Jesse "Takamiyama" Kuhaulua, and Akebono (the first non-Japanese to reach the exalted rank of yokozuna, or grand champion) .

Episode 28

The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out

Tue, Jun 15, 2004