Cain's Children

13th

October 2016 •English

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

The Big One

September 1997 •English

The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.

Gaza

January 2019 •English

GAZA brings us into a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict. Throughout its entire history the Gaza Strip has been witness to conflict and upheaval. From ancient times this tiny coastal territory, located at a crossroads between continents, has been a pawn whose fate rested in the hands of powerful neighbours.

Por Favor, Socorro

June 2021 •Portuguese

Do You Remember Revolution?

October 1997 •Italian

In Italy, in the mid-seventies, Adriana, Barbara, Nadia and Susanna were 20 years old when they decided to join the armed struggle and leave behind their social life and their families in order to make the revolution the center and the aim of their existence. Today they have returned after many years in prison, and they try, each one of them, to recount their own experiences. They speak about the political reasons which initially sustained them, the conflicts, the doubts, and the moments of being torn apart which market out their lives as women caught up in the vortex of war. A course of events which ended in the condemnation of the armed struggle and the pain of the lives that were destroyed – their victims’ lives and their own.

Standard Operating Procedure

February 2008 •English

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

The Condemned

June 2013 •English

With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)

Eyes of a Survivor

Invalid date •English

An experimental intake of Ojore Nuru Lutalo as he recounts the 22 years he spent in political isolation, and the flourishing comradery he built with prison abolitionist, Bonnie Kerness, whose work supported him and other prisoners.

Prison, My Parents & Me

November 2016 •English

Nearly 10,000 children in Britain visit a parent in prison every week, BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Catey Sexton gives a humane and sensitive insight into their lives in this documentary made for Children in Need (1980).

Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison

March 1966 •English

Pete and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced this rare document of of work songs by inmates of the Ellis Unit. Worksongs helped African American prisoners survive the grueling work demanded of them. With mechanization and integration, worksongs like these died out shortly after this film was made.

Free Chol Soo Lee

August 2022 •English

On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.

Was lebst Du?

November 2004 •German

Prison Art

October 1998 •Russian

This documentary, which features Sergei Parajanov’s heartbreaking letters from prison, explores creativity among inmates and the art born in conditions designed to destroy all traces of selfhood.

Mio

August 2008 •English

Mio blir som barn skickad till Sverige för att tjäna ihop pengar till sin familj i Thailand. Men det går inte som föräldrarna planerat. Under tre år följer regissör Jonas Embring Mio och hans gäng på Henriksdalsberget utanför Stockholm. De lever i en hård vardag med kriminell identitet och våld. Till sist bestämmer sig Mio för att förändra sitt liv.

Wrong Fellows

September 2010 •Dutch

Documentary about four maffia-like friends based in Amsterdam.

Like It Is

July 1968 •English

This documentary on the "youth movement" of the late 1960s focuses on the hippie pot smoking/free love culture in the San Francisco Bay area.

Defending Our Lives

March 1994 •English

Documentary about the magnitude and severity of domestic violence. This film features four women imprisoned for killing their batterers and their terrifying personal testimonies. It won an Oscar at the 66th Academy Awards in 1994 for Documentary Short Subject.

Endangered Species

August 2004 •English

We have volunteered for the Earth Conservation Corps to restore the Anacostia river and the Washington wasteland where we live and often meet an early violent death. We are striving to return our nation's bird,the bald eagle, to our Nation's Capitol. If the eagles survive maybe we can too. We began filming this documentary in 1992 to show people our America. "Endangered Species" is our story. - Written by Antoine Woods

In My Own Words

January 2005 •English

A film narrated by a prison interview with long-jailed black radical Ojore Lutalo. Ojore touches on many issues, from what prisons are, to why he is in prison to the nature of the black radical struggle. Ojore was released in 2009, only to be rearrested a few months later as the alleged "Amtrak Terrorist" in Colorado. All charges were dropped after no one was able to provide any evidence of wrongdoing.

God, Give Us Freedom

January 2013 •Armenian

The film is about a woman’s prison and shows how creativity transforms people and gives them strength.