
Independent Lens
Three Chaplains
Three Muslim chaplains aim to make change in one of America’s most powerful institutions—the military. For them, the fight for equality and religious freedom begins on the inside.
Through musical animated shorts, The History of White People in America tells the history of how skin became race, and race became power.
Ed’s career has covered a lot of ground. He is a filmmaker, director, animation artist, and modern day griot. Prior to joining Maverix, he was a key member of Wild Brain directing team. While there he was a lead commercial director, as well as helped to develop numerous television and film projects for the studio. For Wild Brain’s commercial division, Ed’s… Show more
Clementine worked in Paris, France for four years at a commercial production company, working with brands such as Coca-Cola, IBM, L’Oreal, RadioShack, and McKinsey & Co. She worked across various mediums from corporate videos to television (CNN, BBC), and film. Her work took her throughout Europe and the United States, as well as in Georgia, China,… Show more
Pierce Freelon is an accomplished Hip Hop/soul/electronic musician and Emmy-award winning producer, director and professor from Durham, NC. For over 15 years Pierce has traveled the world teaching Hip Hop and music production to youth in community centers. He is the co-founder of Beat Making Lab, an Emmy Award winning PBS web-series, has taught in the… Show more
Jon is an Emmy Award-winning director, writer and producer. He has produced, directed written and overseen documentaries for Amazon, PBS, National Geographic, Time, Inc., ITVS, TED, TechTV, Discovery, and for digital and theatrical distribution. In 2012, Halperin founded Room 608, with Mark Mannucci, a new media and documentary production company.… Show more
Aaron has been working in the audio industry for nearly 25 years. He started as a musician and recording engineer in the studios of New York City. He has worked with a diverse group of musical artists including, Mos Def, Pharcyde and Shawn Colvin. For the past 13 years, he has been composing music for TV, film and digital media with Trailblazer Studios in North… Show more
Drew is presently the Emperor of Funjacket Enterprises. Previously he was co- founder and Chief Creative Officer of Colossal Pictures. Using any and all techniques in film and video, he directed or creative directed broadcast identities (MTV, Showtime, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon), commercials (Coca-Cola, Intel, Nike, Honda and… Show more
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Through the entertaining and engaging lens of musical animated shorts, The History of White People in America examines how skin color has come to define race in America. Episode 1 introduces viewers to Virginians' invention of the white “race” in the aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. Episode 2 picks up the exploration a few decades later with an African man and an English woman—husband and wife—singing about the fate of their future as new laws render their love illegal. And in Episode 3, President Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, and one of their five children share illuminating insights on how skin became color, color became race, and race became power. Episode 4 reflects on George Washington’s destruction of Haudenosaunee, an Indigenous nation and the oldest democracy in North America at the time, while episode 5 brings viewers to 1815 when hereditary slavery of Africans had become the backbone of the economy and the social structure of the new nation. In episode 6, Afong Moy, the nation’s first Chinese woman, is exhibited as a circus oddity in 1830s New York. Viewed collectively, these shorts capture the truth of what it means to be American—that “us” and “them” are constantly redefined, that racial history deserves contemplation, and that above all else, Americans are bound by rich differences in experience and identity.
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