The ITVS Indie Roundup
A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.
Celebrity documentaries don’t have to be brainless. Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service compiled a list of the top ten performer documentaries, including such classics as the Bob Dylan film Don’t Look Back and Madonna: Truth or Dare. (via POV) If you’re wondering where the inventive imagery of Beasts of the Southern Wild came from, check out the director Behn Zeitlin’s first animated short, the bizarre and fascinating Egg, based on Moby-Dick. Finally, a level-headed examination of what it takes for a professional film to succeed on the web from Short of the Week: “Cat videos and bad web series are not your competition. Your real competition is the 5,000 other dramas shot with shallow depth-of-field and digital effects that go up every week.”
What do classrooms look like in Lagos, Nigeria; St. Petersburg, Russia; and Jessore, Bangladesh? This fascinating documentary photo series answers each of those questions with a single snapshot. Advice for the creative life written by French-Cuban author Anaïs Nin, stylized into a work of art by Lisa Congdon: “You live out the confusions until they become clear.” Become an interactive documentary wizard even if you don’t know how to code: Zeega, funded by the Knight News Challenge in 2011 and soon to be released in beta, allows you to drag-and-drop media from YouTube, Flickr, Dropbox, Tumblr, SoundCloud, and other platforms. The Olympics are over, but our fascination never has to end. Here’s a slideshow of Wired photographers’ favorite stills from this summer’s games.
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ITVS Responds to Rescission Vote
July 18, 2025[July 18, 2025] Carrie Lozano, President and CEO of the Independent Television Service (ITVS), issued the following statement in response to Congress' vote clawing back congressional approved funding for public media.Congress’ decision to pass the rescission package that removes the $1.1B of previously approved federal funds for the Corporation of…
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Protecting Our Future and Charting the Course Ahead
June 4, 2025We are sharing the sad and difficult news that ITVS is reducing its staff by 13 individuals across the organization. For a staff so committed to our mission and to each other, this 20% staff reduction is a painful moment. Our dedicated staff have made important contributions that are part of ITVS' legacy and success story. In the past few months, ITVS has…
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ITVS Documentary "Greener Pastures" Honored by the Television Academy
May 1, 2025The Television Academy announced that the ITVS-supported, Independent Lens documentary Greener Pastures will be celebrated at the 18th Television Academy Honors. Established in 2008, the Television Academy Honors Award recognizes “Television with a Conscience” and seeks to celebrate programs that inspire, motivate, and harness the power of…