2021 Film Festival

Incarceration Nations

Screening: September 30, 2021 6:00 pm

Running Time: 90 minutes

Incarceration Nations is a mixed-media series about global mass incarceration narrated entirely by those who have lived incarceration around the world. Incarceration Nations exposes an international crisis while also spotlighting solutions. Incarceration Nations: “Home” coming highlights the struggles of people across the globe coming home after incarceration. The formerly incarcerated are offered little to no help with reentry which contributes to the sky-rocketing recidivism rates. Incarceration Nations: (In)Justice For Women uplifts women around the world who have faced challenges of trauma and incarceration. Women are the fastest-growing prison population in the world, their challenges are unique and so must be the way society supports them. Incarceration Nations: Heal Not Harm questions the way the traditional criminal justice system punishes people and proposes another solution. 

Step Inside the Circle & Honor Yard

Double Feature Short

Screening: October 1, 2021 3:10 pm

Running Time: 16 minutes

Step Inside the Circle, beckons us to witness the damage done by childhood trauma, then ultimately guides us to embrace the extraordinary ability of the mind, body and spirit to heal. Honor Yard, filmed on the same day, continues the conversation about childhood trauma, focusing on the symptoms of trauma and the effects of living with adversity from childhood.

We Came to Heal

Screening: October 1, 2021 3:27 pm

Running Time: 81 minutes

We, being young people of color from the seven neighborhoods, help us overstand how much pain our communities have been through and continue to endure in regards to historical, structural and interpersonal dynamics, displacement and hurt. This movement isn’t only for people who need to individually heal from oppression but to know we can’t heal alone, building trust amongst ourselves is the first part of our healing but also making that a political activity. The Healing Justice Movement is personal because we are a part of that hurt community. While we build love with each-other we’re attempting acts of self healing that aids collective transformation. With this youth led Movement, we are showing our commitment to human dignity and equity. We Came to Heal!

Racially Charged

Screening: October 2, 2021 3:10 pm

Running Time: 35 minutes

America’s Misdemeanor Problem exposes how our country’s history of racial injustice evolved into an enormous abuse of criminal justice power.  13 million people a year – most of them poor and people of color – are abused by this system. Through first-person accounts of those charged under the Black Codes of the Reconstruction era paralleled with the outrageous stories of people trapped in the system today, the film brings to light the unfolding of a powerful engine of profits and racial inequality. With the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, this film provides historical context and examines America’s history of racist oppression. The primary inspiration for this documentary comes from Alexandra Natapoff’s book, “Punishment Without Crime,” which offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Based on extensive original research, legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a massive petty offense system that produces over 13 million cases each year. People arrested for minor crimes are swept through courts where defendants often lack lawyers, judges process cases in mere minutes, and nearly everyone pleads guilty. This misdemeanor machine starts punishing people long before they are convicted; it punishes the innocent, and it punishes conduct that never should have been a crime. As a result, vast numbers of Americans–most of them poor and people of color–are stigmatized as criminals, impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of drivers’ licenses, jobs, and housing.

Fighting For Family

Screening: October 2, 2021 3:46 pm

Running Time: 31 minutes

Fighting For Family tells the story of a family from the indigenous tribes of Vietnam separated by incarceration and deportation and their fight for reunification. The film captures the love story of a young family who faces countless challenges, yet continues to be hopeful, resilient, and joyful. Fighting for Family discusses the U.S. imperialist war machine and the intergenerational harm that it inflicts, from the refugee flight to the school to prison to deportation pipeline, but also highlights the power of resilience and community resistance.

Tutwiler

Screening: October 2, 2021 4:17 pm

Running Time: 34 minutes

Tutwiler, a documentary short from FRONTLINE (PBS) and The Marshall Project, offers a powerful and unforgettable window into the lives of incarcerated pregnant women — and what happens to their newborns. What is it like to give birth — and then be forced to say goodbye to your baby 24 hours later? To most mothers, it’s a scenario that’s unimaginable. But it’s a reality for the dozens of pregnant women behind bars in any given year at Alabama’s notorious Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. Directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Elaine McMillion Sheldon (Heroin(e), Recovery Boys) and reported and produced by The Marshall Project’s Alysia Santo.

Changing the Game

Screening: October 3, 2021 3:10 pm

Running Time: 12 minutes

This video explores the organizational impact of From Prison Cells to PhDs as we invest in the potential of currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. Told with the voices of our Director, our Scholars and Team Members, and the stunning backdrop of Baltimore City, you will see what happens when an organization invests in potential. Lives are forever changed – individuals, families, and communities. Prison-to-Professionals (P2P) work tirelessly to reach, touch and change lives. Our team inspires people with criminal convictions to excel BEYOND what society and life circumstances have determined to be the norm. From Prison Cells the Ph.D. is not about helping someone pursue a Ph.D. or a doctorate degree or professional degree. Prison to Professionals is about helping individuals pursue their innate excellence – helping them tap into and reach their full potential via higher educational attainment be that vocational school, professional school and beyond.

Time

Screening: October 3, 2021 3:25 pm

Running Time: 80 minutes

In this intimate yet epic love story filmed over two decades, indomitable matriarch Fox Rich strived to raise her six sons and keep her family together as she fights for her husband’s release from the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

The Girl Inside

Screening: October 4, 2021 3:10 pm

Running Time: 11 minutes

“The Girl Inside” is a short documentary by 1 Girl Revolution, in partnership with BEHOLD, which features a poignant look at the stories of incarcerated women within Cook County Jail and a life-changing academic course taught by Dr. Laura Biagi (formerly of DePaul University in Chicago) called, “Storytelling as a Healing Art.” This short documentary, which is a part of an ongoing series featuring the stories of everyday women changing the world through their lives, reunites Dr. Biagi with five of her former students for a special one day course on the transformative power of our stories and our voices – and what is revealed is: “The Girl Inside.”

Testif-i: The Fight to Reunite

Limited Series

Screening: October 4, 2021 3:16 pm

Running Time: 26 minutes

Testif-i | Storytelling for Change is a multimedia initiative from A New Way of Life that aims to transform the public dialogue on mass incarceration through storytelling and the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated women. Testif-i will broaden the conversation to include perspectives and insights through the unique lens of gender, race and justice. The 2021 Testif-i series focuses on the difficulties of repairing family connections after a long prison sentence, finding personal freedom, and building a future beyond incarceration. Our discussion will focus on a parents’ fight to reunite with their children after incarceration. Our participants include one formerly incarcerated mother, the child of a formerly incarcerated mother, and two family reunification lawyers. Each year, jails separate 2.3 million mothers away from their children (Prison Policy Initiative), a phenomenon disproportionately affecting Black and Brown women. Even a short stay in jail can result in the permanent loss of one’s children resulting in devastating harms to a child who needs their mother. According to the Marshall Project between 2006 and 2016, tens of thousands of children were placed into foster care solely because a parent was incarcerated. The parental rights of 5,000 of these children were eventually taken away entirely.