A young Nigerian student and poet, abused and neglected by his cruel stepmother, finds solace in friendship. His wrongful arrest tests his resilience. A story of survival and redemption.
Confined to a cold cell for 41 nights, a doctor's dreams of failures collide with his memories of success.
Two brothers, separated by time and prison bars, reestablish contact. Inspired by James Baldwin's short story, 'Sonny's Blues.'
The youngsters housed in the "Almafuerte" Maximum Security Juvenile Institute have their first approach to audiovisual recording. A film and documentary video workshop serves as an excuse for them to make a short film inside the prison. The camera is a rabid toy that generates fascination in them and rescues a sheltered, innocent smile that seemed forgotten under the shadows. While inside libertarian cries bounce against the walls, outside sounds fanfares of an iron fist.
Sonny and Dub once shared a cell. Now Sonny is a free man, but Dub is on death row and sentenced to be executed in a matter of days. As Sonny comes to visit Dub one last time, Dub has one last dying request for Sonny.
Carlito 'Kado' is sentenced to three years in prison for fraud, leaving his pregnant girlfriend to fend for herself in the real world.
A convicted felon builds a feminist movement from behind bars at an all-male prison in Soledad, California.
A documentary about Goran Ivandic 'Ipe', the drummer of most popular Yugoslav rock band of all time, Sarajevo-based "Bijelo dugme" (White Button). Ivandic's fatal jump from the balcony of hotel Metropol in Belgrade in 1994 sparked much controversy around his fate.
North Philadelphia, PA – Kev, El and Andy are three men united by one struggle: they are trying to defy gravity. As part of the 700,000 prisoners released into society every year, they find themselves faced with a chilling outlook: 67% of ex-offenders re-offend within three years. What explains this invisible force that keeps former inmates in a seemingly unending cycle of incarceration? Filmed on the street over the course of two years, Pull of Gravity is an intimate portrait of these three men that confronts head-on the gritty details of lives cut short by poverty and drugs, where dealing is seen as the only route to economic prosperity, where using offers an escape from powerlessness, and where prison is too often the next stop. The film’s unfiltered lense captures its subjects as they lay bare their stories, fears, and tentative dreams.
"A School Behind Bars" centers around Asahi Junior High School, which is located within Nagano Matsumoto Boy's prison in Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture - the only public school in Japan that is located inside a prison. The school's students are all prisoners ranging in age from 20-70. The students are carefully selected after taking an entrance exam and being selected by the school's admission board.
As a young filmmaker who suffers from OCD, Lucas struggles with finishing his synopsis for a film that he had always dreamt of making. Despite his ambitions, Lucas can't seem to gather his thoughts and he worries that his work will not be the perfection that he undoubtedly desires. With overwhelming emotions and a lack of self-confidence, Lucas finds himself trapped in his own mind where he desires everything to go as planned but is instead faced with his fears and an altered reality that his mind presents to him.
A prisoner sentenced to 622 years in prison is imprisoned in a Greek prison in which the laws of the Junta are still in force. Isovitis (Lifer) and all prisoners are supported by a mouse living in prison, Montechristo, behaving very arrogantly.
Johnny Cash at San Quentin was recorded live at San Quentin State Prison on February 24, 1969 and released as an album onJune 16 of that same year. The concert was filmed by Granada Television. Songs performed include Wreck of the Old 97 , I Walk the Line, San Quentin and A Boy Named Sue.
Maryam Henderson-Uloho spent thirteen years in prison in Louisiana, seven in solitary confinement. After her release she struggled to find housing or employment. She began selling secondhand goods out of a suitcase on a street corner in New Orleans. In just three years, she grew her business to a brick-and-mortar thrift store—one that also provides housing and employment for other formerly-incarcerated women. She calls those women—and her store—Sister Hearts.
Told through the charismatic voice of inmate Kenneth Reams, Free Men is a film about human resilience. In solitary confinement for the last 25 years, Kenneth has pushed back the walls of his cell to become a painter, a poet, the founder of a non-profit, and an art event organizer - while fighting at the same time for justice. At age 18, Kenneth Reams was convicted for capital murder without firing a bullet. He became the youngest inmate on Arkansas death row. Alongside art, the film shows how love can cross barbed wire and the length of an ocean in Kenneth's love for Isabelle, a French artist who wants to become his wife.
When Canada's Government takes the decision to transform the correctional system to one that puts punishment first, the country's rehabilitative prison farms are one of the first causalities. A strong opposition forms towards the farm closures and for two days in late summer of 2010, hundreds of angry protesters stand in front of Frontenac Prison Farm in the heart of Kingston, Ontario, ready to block cattle trucks brought in to remove the hundred-year-old prize dairy heard.
Three boys, they all committed murder. After discovering their haunting faces and disturbing stories in a banned prison documentary from 1984, the filmmaker goes out to find them and discovers untold secrets and a Hungary he has never known.
The Internationally award winning documentary film from Norway follows a 33 year old woman's life prior to serving a 7 year prison sentence for killing her own 66 year old father. He sexually abused her from she was 6 - 17 years old. He also abused her sister who became a drug addict and died of an overdose at the age of 38. The film brings us back to her childhood and describes how sexual abuse can go on for years without anyone is reacting to it. "My beloved child" deals with issues like physical, emotional and sexual abuse, domestic problems, suicide, drug issues, societies responsibility, individual responsibility, post effects/late consequences of childhood traumas. The films is primarily made - and edited - for children and youths, in order for them to understand and put words to abuse.