Dying Alone is a story of three incarcerated men who discover that they have serious health issues; two of them are terminally ill. As a result, they are forced to file a “Compassionate Release,” which could get them out of prison before dying. Racing against time, they must convince the prison officials of San Quentin and the court system that they are worthy of release.

Dying Alone

Dying Alone offers an important look into the lives of those afflicted with terminal illnesses behind bars.

"Every Second" is a poignant short film that delves into the life of Reese, a man who has just been released from prison but finds himself struggling with the reality that he will never be free from his experience of prison.

Every Second

Fractured States weaves together the stories of 3 separate families from South Central, Los Angeles, and chronicles the historic social and legal shift surrounding marijuana in the U.S. today. Told through the eyes of those most affected by decades of failed drug policy, this film seeks to change the perception of communities of color and to show that many of the people serving time for non-violent drug crimes are not always the hardened criminals people on the outside might imagine. They are sons and fathers, business and family men, just like their white counterparts.

English

Fractured States

Home For Good is a short documentary film series produced by the nonprofit For The People in collaboration with filmmakers Lucas Guilkey and Thanh Tran. The vignettes depict the journeys of people who were released from prison through an unexpected law: the same prosecutor who asked to imprison them later requests their release. Through this series, For The People aims to grow the second look movement and expand support for second look policies across the country.&nbsp; This film follows Troy Dunmore, who was convicted to 65 years-to-life. He was released through this new law, Prosecutor-Initiated Resentencing (PIR), in 2021. At&nbsp;58 years old, Troy had served 26 years in prison and had 39-years-to-life remaining on his sentence. This film was co-produced by Thanh Tran, who was also released through PIR, and was created following ethical storytelling guidelines he helped establish at our organization – ensuring Troy was able to tell his story on his own terms.&nbsp;

Home For Good: Troy's Journey Home from Prison through PIR

Once sentenced to life in prison, Troy is released thanks to the same prosecutor’s office that put him behind bars. Now back home, this film offers a glimpse into a day in his new life.

A film produced entirely by incarcerated people. Incarcerated men striving to reconnect to culture and reach their ceremonial Makahiki. Despite the toxic environment, ideals of American masculinity, and their personal struggles, will they succumb to the pressure or will they persevere and reach their zenith and celebrate Makahiki.

Healing Through Hula

A film produced entirely by incarcerated people. Sāle, an incarcerated man, seeks redemption and discovers it in a surprising place, a group of men practicing hula.

Uncle Wendell shares a centuries old family secret with his great nephews. If the secret gets out, it can effect and infect the entire world. Literally.

In The Matchbox

Like April, 90% of youth who come to be involved in the justice system have had prior traumatic experiences. April’s life virtually began in the foster care system, and spent her formative years in households and spaces where she was abused and mistreated by those entrusted with her safety and wellbeing. At so many points in April’s journey, an adult could have intervened and altered the course of her life for the better. Weaving together documentary and fiction elements, the film shows us those moments to illuminate a cinematic and ultimately magical path to transforming our youth justice system.

Little April

Ny Nourn is the Co-Director of the Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC), a Bay Area coalition that provides direct support to incarcerated Asian American and Pacific Islanders. Ny works to dismantle the prison to deportation pipeline and bring community members home.

How We Heal Each Other: Ny Nourn

Ny Nourn is the Co-Director of the Asian Prisoner Support Committee (APSC), a Bay Area coalition that provides direct support to incarcerated Asian American and Pacific Islanders. Ny works to dismantle the prison to deportation pipeline and bring community members home.

"Return From the Dead: People v. Stephen Joseph Bennett" is a gripping documentary that follows Stephen Bennett's transformation from a Super Bowl Sunday 2006 crime to his extraordinary legal odyssey for freedom. Witness his journey from four life sentences to freedom, amidst a defining battle within America's legal system, highlighting the resilience of the human spirit against a backdrop of law and redemption.

Return from the Dead

"Return From the Dead: People v. Stephen Joseph Bennett" is a gripping documentary that follows Stephen Bennett's transformation from a Super Bowl Sunday 2006 crime to his extraordinary legal odyssey for freedom.

Every Friday night, former inmates and prisoners’ loved ones get together at KPFT, a listener sponsored community radio in downtown Houston, to create The Prison Show, a radio program that caters to prisoners and the families they've left behind. The show keeps prisoners connected with the outside world and allows families to call in and leave messages for prisoners who are listening. In addition, the radio produces a show with live coverage whenever there is an execution in Texas, airing an interview with the condemned prisoner as the State of Texas kills him.&nbsp;Since 1980, the show has unveiled the tentacular reach of the United States’ penal system, whose grip goes far beyond prisons, and from which it is impossible to escape.

The Prison Show

'Shoebox' is a short story about a young man that goes by the name of James, who we will see take that chance and in the end make a choice. This decision leads him to a confrontation with his adversary and the possibility of altering the course of his life. We first meet James well into his adolescent years of life and follow him as he experiences moment after moment of violence and abuse. We are witness to the evolution of James becoming a product of his environment. He reaches the point where enough is enough. James takes life into his own hands and makes the decision to confront the opposition head on. Fighting fire with fire, we find James staring down his enemy with a barrel of a gun. As the BANG of the gun echoes, we abruptly shift to show the two possible paths that his decision could lead him down. As we are introduced to the dual realities of James' decision, we reveal that each reality can see what could have been. Along this journey I’ve noticed that my creative inspirations ultimately come from my personal experiences. Of course, with some stories, amplification plays a hand to push home the message, but all in all I am a product of my environment and decisions. I think we all know a James. He represents the person who has suffered constant abuse from various angles in life and is expected to just deal with it. Young men of color have been forced to carry the terror of abuse, not only from our environment but from the history of terror embedded in our DNA. Being born black and male is being born with the burden to survive rather than to live. It is where our skin makes us targets and our projected power makes us threats. We are the ones who are forced to make decisions when our rational is being suffocated and challenged by an entity that has had the upper hand since day one. 'Shoebox' is not only a visual representation of this, but it is also a call out to think. Think before you speak and to think before you react. We are bred to believe being reactionary is the law of the land and by being confined to this mind state, countless lives of our brothers have been lost and deemed victims of circumstance. What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. We must find a way to turn these conversations into action so that the generations to come may cease to inherit the curses passed down through our forefathers. This film embodies the statement that one wrong move or decision can alter our lives as well as the lives of our families and friends forever. We must move accordingly.

Shoebox

THE QUILTERS follows the daily lives of several men, spending most of its screen time inside the sewing room in a Level 5 maximum security prison in a small Missouri town. As we follow several quilts from design to completion, audiences will come to know these men, witnessing their struggles, triumphs, and sense of pride as they create something beautiful in this windowless, sacred space, deep within the prison walls. Through this process and the relationships forged we witness the power of art to restore an individual's view of themselves and others. The men we meet in THE QUILTERS are building connection with each other and a bridge of sorts to the outside community through their quilt making. My goal as a filmmaker is to bridge divides and when possible restore hope. My hope is that this film will enhance the human experience and encourage empathy. I believe the restorative justice art program illustrated in this documentary can be replicated in other prisons and the film can help make that a reality. Most importantly, this story humanizes how we think about who sits behind bars in this country. I was honored to be welcomed in to the sewing room by the men at South Central Correctional in Missouri and am thrilled to have THE QUILTERS screen at the San Quentin film festival.&nbsp;

The Quilters

The Quilters follows a men's quilting group inside a maximum security prison as they create personalized quilts for local foster children. Through this process we witness the power of art to restore an individual's view of themselves and others.

Amidst the redwood trees on the California-Oregon border sits one of the most infamous prisons in US history. Pelican Bay is a labyrinthine construction of solid cement blocks – a supermax prison – opened in 1989 and designed specifically for mass-scale solitary confinement. For decades, it held men alone in tiny cells indefinitely. Then one day in 2013, 30,000 prisoners went on hunger strike.&nbsp; THE STRIKE weaves together, thread-by-thread, a half century of personal and criminal justice history into a single, compelling narrative around the drama of the 2013 hunger strike to end indefinite isolation. Grounded in testimonies from the hunger strikers themselves, the film details how the protest was conceived from a whisper inside the halls of Pelican Bay to a colossal feat across California prisons. With unprecedented access to state prison officials and never-before-seen footage from inside Pelican Bay, THE STRIKE reveals the panic that gripped the highest echelons of state government. Told through the stories of the men who bore the brunt of this practice, THE STRIKE goes beyond making a case against solitary confinement; it illuminates the power of organizing and prisoner-led resistance, and in doing so, flips the true-crime genre on its head.

The Strike

The Strike is a feature documentary that tells the story of a generation of California men who endured decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launched the largest hunger strike in U.S. history.

This film was shot in an active jail cell with a formerly incarcerated actor and the singing is by a formerly incarcerated man. The images of successful people represented in the film are merely a sliver of all the success stories and examples across the country folks inside can look to for examples, inspiration, hope, and guidance.

Two Wolves

Prison is dark and hopelessness is darker. But the path forward starts with self-empowerment and there are many examples before and around us of how to reach our potential and achieve liberation.

Unhoused &amp; Unseen is a short documentary produced in collaboration with students of the University of California, Berkeley highlighting the paths of Kolby Southwood and George “Mesro” Coles-El. It explores the stigma of being unhoused, the unhoused-to-incarcerated pipeline, and their formative years.

Unhoused and Unseen

Unhoused & Unseen is a short documentary produced in collaboration with students of the University of California, Berkeley highlighting the paths of Kolby Southwood and George “Mesro” Coles-El. It explores the stigma of being unhoused, the unhoused-to-incarcerated pipeline, and their formative years

Gain an eye-opening perspective on the US prison system by joining inmate Jose Flores on a journey from sunrise to sunset. 5 BLOCK provides an authentic look into the life of a prisoner, exposing the daily routines, aspirations, and resilience of an individual often overlooked by society. Through Jose’s personal story, audiences are invited to reflect on their own attitudes toward incarceration and the power of redemption.

5 Block

Follow Jose Flores, a convicted criminal serving a life sentence, who, despite overwhelming challenges and adversity, discovers his inner strength and transforms into a beacon of hope and redemption for himself and others.

In America, 80 million people in America have an arrest record. That’s 1 in 3 working age Americans. Most people want to work and thrive in America. Yet a conviction background carries thousands of collateral consequences that create massive barriers to equal employment and participation in society.&nbsp; Millions of people carry this scarlet letter through life each day, facing a “civil death” that inhibits their ability to contribute to the economy and society. Collectively these factors form one of the leading civil &amp; human rights issues of our time. America has invested in a structural and cultural system that relies on punishment. What if we invested in people not punishment? In BACKGROUND, we learn about how we got to the current crisis point, and meet a diverse group of people who are leading the fair chance movement to transform the future of work. We meet business leaders, policymakers, and justice-impacted advocates who are disrupting conscious biases and outdated practices to create new narratives, opportunities and models for success. Our guide through this exploration of the fair chance movement is Ken Oliver - who served nearly 24 years of a life sentence in California and is now a business leader in San Francisco. Ken leads us behind the decisions and motivations that each person has faced in order to create a more equitable workplace and community. Ken offers us a part of a blueprint for how to change the system, narrative and mindsets around the future of work for the country. Ultimately, the project reminds us of the core American values of redemption, that each person’s life is valuable and that we all carry a responsibility to give people an equal chance.

Background

An exploration into the growing crisis caused by America’s obsession with arrests and background checks, and what it takes to build a fairer future of work for all.

With no employment and two small children, a mom is pushed to her breaking point.

BANG!

With no employment and two small children, a mom is pushed to her breaking point.

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