Indie Lens Pop-Up is a neighborhood series that brings people together—virtually and in-person—for film screenings and community-driven conversations. Featuring documentaries seen on PBS’s Independent Lens, Indie Lens Pop-Up draws local residents, leaders, and organizations to discuss what matters most, from newsworthy topics and social issues, to family and community relationships.

Every season, there are hundreds of local events hosted by Indie Lens Pop-Up partners across the country. Since its inception in 2005, more than 7,200 Indie Lens Pop-Up events have brought an estimated 430,000 participants together to discuss issues that impact local communities. 

MPT's 2025-26 Indie Lens Pop-Up season will engage communities on a range of topics, from the debate over book collections in libraries and the legacy of a groundbreaking Congresswoman, to representation within the Little People community and exploring world cultures through the local grocery store. These community events empower audiences to deepen their understanding of themselves and each other. Learn more about MPT's plans for this season's film slate, including a series of screenings in local libraries across the state!

Through its roster of five documentary projects this season, Indie Lens Pop-Up will ignite conversations on a range of topics, including a Cambodian American basketball prodigy, the American institution of public libraries, and the history of funk music. This season’s topics also aim to expand perspectives through deeply personal stories, like what it means to live with Alzheimer’s disease and the bond between father and son. Explore the films and MPT's screening schedule below!

The Tuba Thieves
By Alison O’Daniel

Music isn’t necessarily about listening, and hearing is not always an auditory experience. The Tuba Thieves is a holistic exploration of musicality and the expansion of sound.

Screening Events:

The Tuba Thieves Virtual Screening Experience
Monday, June 3rd at 7pm
Watch the Discussion

Broadcast Premiere: Monday May 20, 2024 at 10pm EDT | Watch here

Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s
By Anna Moot-Levin and Laura Green

Nearly 1 million Americans currently live with Parkinson’s disease, and Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s highlights the commitment of doctors, scientists, and caretakers working tirelessly to find breakthrough treatments and ultimately cures for these illnesses. Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s is the second in a series of three documentaries, each focusing on a different neurodegenerative disease.

Screening Events:

Matter of Mind: My Parkinson's Screening & Community Support Event (in person)
April 18th at 7pm
Watch the Discussion

Broadcast Premiere: Monday April 8, 2024 at 10pm EDT | Watch here

Breaking the News
By Heather Courtney, Princess Hairston, Chelsea Hernandez, and Diane M Quon

A group of women journalists, bucking the white male status quo, launch The 19th*—a digital news startup that asks who has been omitted from mainstream coverage and how they can be included.

Screening Events:

Breaking the News Screening & Panel Discussion
February 22nd at 7pm 
Watch the Discussion

Broadcast Premiere: Monday, February 19, 2024 at 10pm EDT | Watch here

Razing Liberty Square 
By Katja Esson and Ann Bennett

Eight miles inland of Miami’s beaches, Liberty City residents fight to save their community from climate gentrification: their land, sitting on a ridge, becomes real estate gold.

Screening Events:

Razing Liberty Square Screening & Panel Discussion
Tuesday, January 30 at 7pm
Watch the Discussion

Broadcast Premiere: Monday, January 29, 2024 at 10pm EDT | Watch Here

A Town Called Victoria
By Li Lu and Anthony Pedone

On January 28, 2017, a mosque in South Texas erupted in flames. Now, this quiet community must reckon with the deep rifts that drove a man to hate.

Screening Events:

Lunch & Learn Freeview: A Town Called Victoria
Monday, November 13 at 12pm

Broadcast Premiere: Monday, November 13 at 9pm EDT (Episodes 1 & 2) and Tuesday, November 14 (Episode 3) at 10pm EDT | Watch here 

Move Me
by Kelsey Peterson and Daniel Klein

Beneath the waters of Lake Superior, off the shore of Wisconsin, Kelsey Peterson underwent a transformation. On the eve of Independence Day 2012, she dove in and hit the lake bottom headfirst, suffering a life-altering spinal cord injury that takes away both function and sensation from the chest down, essentially robbing Kelsey of her self-identities as an athlete and dancer. Alongside peers and allies in the spinal cord injury community, she seeks to answer the question “Who am I now?” As she grapples with the ebb and flow of hope and acceptance, Kelsey talks to researchers and meets with people who belong to this community and who help give her the strength and the will to return to dance. When a cutting-edge clinical trial surfaces, it tests her expectations and her faith in the possibility of a cure, forcing her to evaluate the limits of her recovery—in body and spirit.

Watch with MPT Passport

Love in the Time of Fentanyl
by Colin Askey, Monika Navarro, Marc Serpa Francoeur, and Robinder Uppal

As fentanyl overdose deaths in Vancouver, Canada reach an all-time high, the Overdose Prevention Society opens its doors—a renegade safe injection site that employs current or former drug users. Its staff and volunteers save lives and give hope to a marginalized community, doing whatever it takes to remain open, in this intimate documentary that looks beyond the stigma of injection drug users.

Watch with MPT Passport 

Storming Caesars Palace
by Hazel Gurland-Pooler

After losing her job as a hotel worker in Las Vegas, Ruby Duncan co-founded a welfare rights group of ordinary mothers who defied notions of the “welfare queen.” In a fight for a universal basic income in 1969, Ruby and other equality activists took on the Nevada mob in organizing a massive protest that shut down Caesars Palace.

Watch with MPT Passport

Free Chol Soo Lee
by Julie Ha, Eugene Yi, Su Kim

Sentenced to death for a lurid 1973 San Francisco murder, Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee was set free after a pan-Asian solidarity movement of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Americans helped to overturn his conviction. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside San Quentin, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him.

Bridge Builders
by Zac Manuel (Producer and Director), Lauren G. Cargo (Producer), Adamu Chan (Director), Alex Flores (Director), Robie Flores (Director), Cai Thomas (Director), and Travis Wood (Director)

Across the United States, community leaders of different ages, backgrounds and geographies are fighting for criminal justice reform. Their work has tangible impacts on the lives of those around them and together they look to a future where no one is left behind. Independent Lens Bridge Builders is a series of short documentaries highlighting these changemakers and their communities, collectively crafting a picture of the reform landscape nationwide.