“Independent Lens” Winter Line Up Announced by PBS

ITVS has unveiled the winter lineup of features that will premiere on INDEPENDENT LENS, a critically acclaimed PBS documentary anthology series, starting January 9, 2024. The films explore various pressing issues through the perspectives of individuals, families, and close-knit communities, including gentrification, mental health, representation, and racial tensions.

“At a time of tremendous upheaval around the world, INDEPENDENT LENS offers stories about individuals struggling to be free,” said Lois Vossen, executive producer of INDEPENDENT LENS. “Starting with the gripping account of families who risk everything to escape North Korea, to Floridians fighting to keep their homes, rural Americans struggling with addiction, and women rewriting how and who reports the news, at the core of these documentaries are authentic people telling their own stories.”

Next up on the winter schedule is the highly acclaimed “Beyond Utopia,” which took home the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. On January 22, “Racist Trees” will be shown, and on January 29, “Razing Liberty Square” will follow. Both films will focus on the struggles of Black American neighborhoods. Beginning on February 5 with the moving final narrative “Sister Úna Lived a Good Death,” and continuing on February 19 with the news-making “Breaking the News,” the season concludes on March 25 with “Greener Pastures,” a personal portrayal of the lives of Midwesterner farmers.

Madeleine Gavin’s feature documentary, BEYOND UTOPIA, which premieres on January 9, is a gripping account of a perilous and protracted escape from North Korea. It follows a family of five as they flee, a mother’s efforts to reconnect with her kid whom she was forcibly separated from, and the brave pastor’s tireless efforts to ensure their safe passage. The award-winning film gives viewers a unique look into the lives of the refugees before, during, and after their escape. It immerses them in the families’ harrowing escape attempt and vividly portrays the life-or-death stakes as they secretly document their journey on cell phone cameras.

RACIST TREES – January 22 – A line of tamarisk trees, a predominantly Black neighborhood, and a liberal desert town are the subjects of the illuminating and provocative documentary “Racist Trees” as racial tensions boil over. The film stars John Legend, Mina T. Son, and Sara Newens as they follow a Black neighborhood in Palm Springs, California, as they battle to have a tall wall of tamarisk trees removed. Some see the trees as a segregationist barrier, but the residents see them as a symbol of racism that refuses to go away.

On January 29, 2024, the film “Razing Liberty Square” directed by Katja Esson, who has been nominated for an Academy Award, will be aired. The film chronicles the struggle of the people living in Liberty City, Miami, to prevent their neighborhood from being pushed out of their home due to climate change. The elevated location of one of the nation’s oldest segregated public housing projects has become a valuable piece of real estate due to the increasing height of the seas. The documentary provides a behind-the-scenes look at the fight as affluent homeowners move inland, turning the historically Black neighborhood into a speculators’ market and ignoring both developers and politicians.

SISTER ÚNA LIVED A GOOD DEATH – February 5 – The world premiere of INDEPENDENT LENS, a touching film about a remarkable woman, will take place on February 5, 2024. A Catholic nun who is rule-breaker, social justice activist, and mischievous decides to live as she dies after being diagnosed with cancer. Sister Úna, who calls herself the “leader of the misfits,” plans her funeral in her final nine months of life in this poignant documentary helmed by Par Parekh and produced by Ali Hart.

BREAKING THE NEWS – February 19 – Heather Courtney, Princess A. Hairston, and Chelsea Hernandez are the acclaimed filmmakers behind the groundbreaking film “Breaking the News,” which will premiere on President’s Day, February 19, 2024. The film chronicles the journey of a group of LGBTQ+ journalists, including MSNBC analyst Errin Haines, as they establish The 19th*, a news startup that challenges the current white-male power structure by investigating the exclusion of certain groups and seeking ways to include them. The video gives an accurate depiction of what it takes to shake up American media by transporting the audience into the newsroom during tense moments, such as when the startup launches during a pandemic and social unrest is on the rise.

GREENER PASTURES – March 25 – Closing the season on March 25, 2024, is “Greener Pastures,” which captures the day-to-day lives of four Midwestern families dealing with the unseen mental health issues affecting farmers in America. Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian and Ian Robertson Kibbe tell the stories of four families through their close, observational views, illuminating the relationships between industrialization, food production, mental health, and climate change.

The PBS app will make the films streamable the second after they air. For more information, visit the website of INDEPENDENT LENS.

INDEPENDENT LENS is a public television documentary series that has won an Emmy(R) Award. Documentaries in the series, which co-founded with Lois Vossen as executive producer, showcase the unwavering visions, artistic accomplishments, and creative freedom of independent filmmakers; the series has received ten nominations for Academy Awards.