Tuning In

Howard hosts on PBS

Terrence Howard, currently on the big screen in the OutKast vehicle “Idlewild,” will host the new season of “Independent Lens,” the Associated Press reports.

The fifth season of the PBS documentary series begins Oct. 24 with “The World According to Sesame Street,” which examines the difficulties in producing international versions of the popular children’s program. Later installments of the series include “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” “Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” and “Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life.”

Mr. Howard, an Oscar nominee for his performance in “Hustle & Flow,” said he was looking forward to his hosting duties.

“I’m a passionate believer in the power of independent filmmaking to take us to places we never thought we’d see, and to connect us to people we would likely never know,” the actor said.

“In this season alone, our filmmakers take us from Ethiopia to Cuba to small-town USA, with portraits of people as diverse as the jazz genius Billy Strayhorn, the people behind the Enron scandal, and a man who saves a flock of wild parrots — even teenage beauty queens who skin muskrats for their talent competition.”

Previous “Independent Lens” hosts include Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Angela Bassett and Don Cheadle.

Indie music on TV

The start of the fall television season doesn’t just mean the usual sitcoms, dramas and reality shows. Those looking for interesting documentary programming have plenty of options, too.

Tonight, for example, Starz Cinema begins a monthly music series, “Musaic on Cinema.” It will feature concerts, documentaries, interviews and travelogues focusing on the best in independent music. All but one of the episodes are world television premieres.

“Sleep Well, Drive Carefully: On the Road with Death Cab for Cutie” starts the series off tonight at 10. The documentary, shot entirely on 16 mm film by director Justin Mitchell, follows the indie darlings who formed the band in Seattle in 1997.

In the 90-minute film, the foursome reflect on how new media and technology have made their success possible. “Twenty-five, 30 years ago there weren’t indie rock bands. It seems like for the most part, people were either on a major label or they did music for a hobby,” comments frontman Ben Gibbard. “The ability for bands like us to promote themselves via word of mouth is astounding.”

Starz Cinema, part of the Starz group of pay-cable channels, will air films in the series at 10 p.m. on the last Monday of each month through March. Future installments include “Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns),” a documentary about the quirky, New York avant-pop act They Might Be Giants, in October and “Finisterre,” a look at London’s music scene scored by Saint Etienne, in November.

Eccentric artists

Those looking for something a little more highbrow — but still fun — should tune in to TV5MONDE, available in the District on Channel 688 on Comcast Cable.

This week the digital French-language network presents five hourlong episodes of “Le bal du siecle,” a documentary series that probes “the art world’s terminal eccentrics.” The series is narrated by French actress Fanny Ardant.

The first episode, which airs today at 12:40 p.m., explores the lives of Peggy Guggenheim and Madeleine Castaing. Mrs. Castaing was a French decorator and patron, with her husband, of the Russian artist Chaim Soutine. Miss Guggenheim, of course, is much better known in this country — she was one of the 20th century’s most famous art collectors and the niece of mining and smelting king Solomon R. Guggenheim.

Unfortunately for U.S. viewers, the series is in French. But no one should have any trouble understanding Karole Vail, Miss Guggenheim’s granddaughter, when she says her grandmother was the “bete-noire de la famille.” Other family members offer interesting insights, as well. Grandson Sandro Rumney remarks, “Her sensibility changed a lot.”

The tastemaker’s relationship with second husband Max Ernst is explored, along with her voracious appetite for art: “I put myself on a regime, on a diet, to buy only one painting a day,” she reports at one point.

Other episodes, airing each day this week at 12:40 p.m., tell us about such eccentric figures as Margaret Rockefeller’s husband, the Marquis de Cuevas, a ballet impresario who received his visitors in bed with his two Pekinese dogs at his side, and Marie-Laure de Noailles, the “Viscountess of Weird,” who was a descendant of the Marquis de Sade and the backer of Luis Bunuel’s film “L’Age d’or.”

• Compiled by Kelly Jane Torrance from staff and wire reports.