American Independents

American Independents

29 Episodes

Get outside the mainstream and sample these idiosyncratic visions from the wide world of indie filmmaking.

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American Independents
  • Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song

    Episode 1

    Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1971 • United States
    Starring Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales

    A landmark of Black and American independent cinema that would send shock waves through the culture, SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG was Melvin Van Peebles’s second feature film, a...

  • Mala Noche

    Episode 2

    Directed by Gus Van Sant • 1985 • United States
    Starring Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate, Ray Monge

    With its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant’s debut feature MALA NOCHE heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant’s hometown ...

  • George Washington

    Episode 3

    Directed by David Gordon Green • 2000 • United States
    Starring Candace Evanofski, Donald Holden, Damien Jewan Lee

    Over the course of one hot summer, a group of children in the decaying rural South must confront a tangle of difficult choices. An ambitiously constructed, elegantly photographed med...

  • Bless Their Little Hearts

    Episode 4

    Directed by Billy Woodberry • 1984 • United States
    Starring Nate Hardman, Kaycee Moore, Angela Burnett

    Scripted and shot by Charles Burnett, Billy Woodberry’s slice-of-life revelation is a key masterpiece of the LA Rebellion, the black independent-cinema renaissance that emerged from UCLA’s film...

  • Clean, Shaven

    Episode 5

    Directed by Lodge Kerrigan • 1994 • United States
    Starring Peter Greene, Robert Albert, Megan Owen

    Lodge Kerrigan began his succession of utterly unique, visually and aurally dazzling character studies with the raw, ravaging CLEAN, SHAVEN. A compelling headfirst dive into the mindscape of a schi...