Alex Gibney
Director
Independent Lens (1999)
Season 4
This acclaimed Emmy Award-winning anthology series features documentaries and a limited number of fiction films united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement and unflinching visions of their independent producers and featuring unforgettable stories about a unique individual, community or moment in history.
Released Aug. 9, 1999
Episode 61 min
10+
Genres: Documentary
Keywords: imdb.celebrity, awards.emmy-award-winner, awards.emmy-award-nominated
Watch Providers: PBS, PBS, YouTube TV, KQED, WETA+WETA+
Production Companies: ITVS
Network: PBS
Country: United States
Languages:
English
S4E1 - Maggie Growls
None
Feb. 4, 2003, midnight
S4E2 - Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story
“Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story,” a wry exploration of the industry in which record producers set amateurs' poems to music and record them (for a fee, of course). Included are interviews with producers, performers, observers and people who have submitted their poems for musical adaptation. And there's a sampling of the results (examples include “Non-Violent Tae-kwon-do Trooper” and “I Am a Ginseng Digger”). Most songs are “in one ear and out the other,” says musician Ellery Eskelin (the son of a song-poem “auteur”). But, he adds, “There's the 10 or 20 percent that are from another planet.”
Feb. 11, 2003, midnight
S4E3 - On This Island
On an isolated Maine island of 350 people, a clash over arts education spins out of control into vandalism and death threats, tearing apart friends and neighbors. Sigourney Weaver narrates this program following a former Broadway producer as he creates a musical to help the community heal its wounds through songs about lobstering, loneliness and the beauty of the sea.
Feb. 18, 2003, midnight
S4E4 - Downside Up
Since the 1980s, the rural working class town of North Adams, Massachusetts, has struggled to kick-start its economy following the mill closings. This program explores how, with the 1999 opening of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the town has united its blue collar base with visionaries from the art world to reinvent itself in the post-industrial economy.
Feb. 25, 2003, midnight
S4E5 - Los Trabajadores/The Workers
None
March 25, 2003, midnight
S4E6 - Chiefs
None
April 1, 2003, midnight
S4E7 - Strange Fruit
None
April 8, 2003, midnight
S4E8 - Bird by Bird with Annie: A Portrait of Anne Lamott
None
April 22, 2003, midnight
S4E9 - Sisters in Resistance
None
April 29, 2003, midnight
S4E10 - Heart of the Sea: Kapolioka'ehukai
Heart of the Sea is an hour-long documentary about Hawaiian legend Rell “Kapolioka'ehukai” Sunn who died in January 1998 of breast cancer at the age of 47. Known worldwide as a pioneer of women’s professional surfing, in the Islands Rell Sunn achieved the stature of an icon — not only for her physical power, grace and luminous beauty, but for her leadership in a community that loved her as much as she loved it. Named one of Hawai’i’s most influential women of the 20th century by ABC television, Sunn - whose Hawaiian name means Heart of the Sea - was eulogized in the New York Times for having “captured the heart of Hawai’i during a 14-year battle with cancer.”
May 6, 2003, midnight
S4E11 - Guns and Mothers
None
May 13, 2003, midnight
S4E12 - Razing Appalachia
None
May 20, 2003, midnight
S4E13 - Hansel Mieth: Vagabond Photographer
None
May 27, 2003, midnight
S4E14 - Daddy & Papa
Daddy & Papa is a one-hour documentary film made by producer/director Johnny Symons in 2002, it explores same-sex parenting as seen in the lives of four families headed by male couples. The film also examines the legal, social, and political challenges faced by gay parents and their children.
June 3, 2003, midnight
PBS
61 min/ep
32723 min
Aug. 9, 1999
Oct. 27, 2025, midnight
Returning Series
TV-PG / 10+
Action
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