Lois Vossen Elevated to Executive Producer of Independent Lens

(San Francisco, CA) August 26, 2015 — Lois Vossen has been elevated to Executive Producer of the award-winning PBS series Independent Lens, which returns this fall with its 14th season on Monday, November 9, 2015, with Stray Dog, acclaimed director Debra Granik’s stereotype-shattering portrait of Vietnam veteran Ron Hall. Vossen has been with the series since its inception as a primetime series on PBS, and is responsible for commissioning new work, curating the series, and working closely with filmmakers during editorial through broadcast. 

Under Vossen’s leadership, the series has received 15 Peabody Awards in 12 years, most recently this spring for Brakeless, a cautionary tale about a catastrophic Japanese train crash. Earlier this month, Independent Lens was nominated for a total of 12 Emmy Awards, including a Primetime Emmy nomination for The Great Invisible and 11 News & Documentary Emmy nominations. In total, films on the series have received eight News & Documentary Emmy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, five Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards, and seven Academy Award nominations. Independent Lens won the IDA Award for Best Curated Series in 2013 and 2014. 

Prior to Independent Lens, Vossen was Associate Managing Director of the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Labs. She has served on the juries at SXSW, DOC New Zealand, Toronto International Film Festival, and New Orleans Film Festival, among others. Vossen is headquartered in San Francisco at ITVS, and has been with the organization for 19 years. Born and raised in Minnesota, she graduated from St. Cloud State University. Past Independent Lens titles include The Weather Underground, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Crips & Bloods: Made in America, Helvetica, The Order of Myths, Young@Heart, Waste Land, Hell and Back Again, The Waiting Room, Detropia, The House I Live In, The Invisible War, Let the Fire Burn, The Kill Team, Bully, The Trials of Muhammad Ali, The Great Invisible, and Muscle Shoals. 

About Independent Lens
Independent Lens is an Emmy® Award-winning weekly series airing on PBS Monday nights at 10pm. The acclaimed series features documentaries united by the creative freedom, artistic achievement, and unflinching visions of independent filmmakers. Presented by Independent Television Service, the series is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people, with additional funding from PBS and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. For more visit pbs.org/independentlens. Join the conversation: Facebook and on Twitter.