A town called victoria

INDEPENDENT LENS

Premieres November 13, 2023

On January 28, 2017, a mosque in the town of Victoria, Texas, burned to the ground. After building lives here for more than 30 years, leaders of Victoria’s Muslim community—Abe Ajrami, Omar Rachid, and the founder of the mosque, Dr. Shahid Hashmi—watch in horror as their spiritual and communal home is destroyed. The next day, Abe, Omar, and Dr. Hashmi hold a press conference by the smoldering rubble. To their surprise, over 500 of their fellow Victorians arrive to stage an impromptu peace rally. Within a week, Omar’s GoFundMe campaign to rebuild the mosque goes viral and raises more than a million dollars. The story of Victoria makes headlines around the world, offering a parable of togetherness in dark times and a balm of comfort to Victoria’s Muslim community. 

But when the cameras turn away and the tidy narrative slips from the headlines, this South Texas community steeped in uneasy history starts to face difficult questions about its own identity. Behind the inspirational news stories is a deeply divided town facing real challenges. Victoria must overcome its age-old political, racial, and economic divides, and begin the hard work of changing itself for the better. However, all are shocked when Marq Vincent Perez, a local Hispanic man, is arrested for burning the mosque. 

Standing with the Muslim community, other area leaders—including Fred Hobbs, the pastor of a Black Baptist church; Danny Garcia, a Hispanic city commissioner; and Susannah Porr, a Caucasian community organizer—gather to pose questions and find answers in the wake of the mosque arson. In a 3-part docuseries, A Town Called Victoria chronicles the town, its activists and politicians; its preachers and worshippers; its community leaders and ordinary folks, as they follow the trial and rebuild the mosque, learning through lessons of the past to find a collective way forward.

Screening event TBD.

razing liberty square

INDEPENDENT LENS

Three contemporary issues – climate change, housing insecurity, and economic inequity – become a unifying force driving redevelopment in Liberty City, Miami, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the country. Until recently, it was home to the oldest segregated public housing project in the United States, Liberty Square. Now, it is ground zero for a burgeoning trend: climate gentrification.

As rising seas threaten Miami’s luxurious beachfront, wealthy property owners are pushing inland to higher ground, creating a speculators’ market in the historically black neighborhood previously ignored by developers and policy-makers alike. Located 10 feet above sea level, Liberty City becomes more attractive with each rising tide and as a result, Liberty Square is being demolished. “It’s no coincidence that Liberty City is suddenly being eyed as prime real estate,” notes local climate justice activist Valencia Gunder. “Developers won’t admit it, but they want the high land.” However, one year into construction of new, mixed-income housing, news spreads that some promises made by the developer will not be honored. Principal Samantha Quarterman finds out that instead of a new building for her community school, the developer plans to build a brand new charter school, and the much-needed health center is shrunk to a mini-facility to make room for a large veterinarian clinic. The news triggers alarms for Valencia and Samantha; both are all too familiar with Miami’s long history of broken promises made to its Black communities. 

Two years into construction, with tensions on the rise between the community and developer, Aaron McKinney is hired as the developer’s “community liaison”. Not only is Aaron a lifelong Liberty City resident, he is Valencia’s lifelong friend. He is convinced mixed-income housing is the solution to generational poverty, but also very aware that his position is tenuous. “My own family thinks I sold my soul to the devil,” he says, “But only by being part of it, I can affect change.” Indeed affecting change in the face of a climate crisis and gentrification is a challenge that Valencia, Samantha, and Aaron live up to. Despite ongoing obstacles, Samantha is able to build her own school building, Valencia reclaims her grandparents’ home from the bank and moves back to the heart of Liberty City, and Aaron resigns from the developer to take on a new job. The strides they make in the face of adversity bring hope to a critical predicament.

Screening event TBD.

Breaking the news

INDEPENDENT LENS

Frustrated by the dearth of women and people of color in the media, Emily Ramshaw wanted to do something radical about the white men dominating newsrooms. So, in 2020, she and a motivated group of women and LGBTQ+ journalists banded together to buck the status quo and launch The 19th* News, a digital news start-up based in Austin, Texas. Named after the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote, but with an asterisk to acknowledge the Black women and women of color who were omitted, The 19th*’s work is guided by the asterisk—asking who is overlooked in the story and how they can be included. With reporters spread across the country, they cover national news on politics and policy from the lens of marginalized communities historically ignored by legacy newsrooms. 

Philadelphia-based editor-at-large Errin Haines covers politics and often breaks major stories including the first national story on the killing of Breonna Taylor. Emerging Latina reporter Chabeli Carrazana is based in Florida and reports on gender and the economy. LA-based Kate Sosin, a nonbinary reporter, covers LGBTQ+ stories, including the increase of anti-trans bills being passed by states. The film documents the honest discussions at The 19th* around race and gender equity, revealing that change doesn’t come easy, and showcases how one newsroom confronts these challenges both as a workplace and in their journalism. But this film is about more than a newsroom. It’s about America in flux, and the voices that are often left out of the American story.

Screening event TBD.

Matter of mind: my parkinson's

INDEPENDENT LENS

Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s is the second in a series of three documentaries focusing on neurodegenerative diseases. Parkinson’s disease (PD) develops when nerve cells in the brain stop making dopamine. PD strips away motor abilities, causing a wide range of symptoms, from tremors and falling to dementia and depression. 

Peter Dunlap-Shohl is diagnosed with PD at the age of 43. As a political cartoonist, he contemplates his future and how he will continue to draw as his motor control declines. In his home state of Alaska, there are no Parkinson’s specialists, so he moves to Washington state for better care. He transforms his journey, with its comedic highs and somber lows, into a graphic novel. Veronica Garcia-Hayes lives in San Francisco’s Mission District. She was diagnosed with PD when she was pregnant, and 12 years later, she manages progressing symptoms while raising a teenager. She channels her energy into physical fortitude, becoming a boxing coach and an advocate for exercise, one of the most powerful methods of slowing the progression of PD. Juan Solano is a Puerto Rican optician. He owns a mom-and-pop eyeglass shop in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood, but worries for the business’ survival as his PD symptoms grow more acute. In hopes of altering the disease’s progression, he pursues deep brain stimulation, a surgery in which electrodes are implanted in the brain.

Each is a tale of determination, where through ingenuity and adaptation, three people offer insight into what it means to live with degenerative illness.

Screening event TBD.

The Tuba Thieves

Between 2011 and 2013, tubas were stolen from high schools across Southern California. While reporters focused on the thieves, Director Alison O'Daniel, who is hard of hearing, was curious about the impact on the students and school communities. She wondered how these thefts were altering the sound of the bands, which ultimately led her to question the role of sound itself and what it means to listen. In The Tuba Thieves, O'Daniel explores the question of sound, prioritizing a hard-of-hearing form of storytelling in which information collides and is allowed to be misunderstood. In prioritizing Deaf and hard of hearing communication, she generates new sensitivity to sound and meaning.

The Tuba Thieves follows the stories of Nyke Prince, a Deaf woman who is given a drum kit; Geovanny Maroquin, a high school saxophone player impacted by the tuba thefts; and Sam Quinones, an L.A. Times reporter seeking answers. Various Los Angeles musicians are also highlighted, performing in Deaf spaces and presenting concerts frequently (mis)interpreted as silent.

Screening event TBD.