A Tale of Singers and Murderers

Bukovsky

January 1977 •English

Alan Clarke's documentary about Soviet writer and dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who had left the Soviet Union in 1976 after years spent in their prisons and psychiatric wards. The film was completed in 1977 but never broadcast, subject only to private screenings. The documentary appears publicly for the first time as a special feature of the BFI's 'Dissent and Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC (1969-1989)' box set, alongside 50 minutes of outtakes.

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.

Por Favor, Socorro

June 2021 •Portuguese

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

An Enclosure

March 1999 •English

We discover a modest, almost derisory garden, located in the heart of the women's prison in Rennes, Brittany, France.

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.

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.

Non-Stop

September 2020 •Basque

Province of Ciudad Real, Spain, December 29, 1990. During the annual march to the Herrera de la Mancha prison, held in support of the members of the terrorist gang ETA imprisoned there, the Basque rock band Negu Gorriak holds a concert, which is recorded, edited on video and turned into a tool of vindication. Decades later, a film crew tries to elaborate a personal essay around this event and its meaning.

Cell 364

July 2020 •German

While Germany sits as one of the major democratic models, an ex-prisoner of the Stasi delivers from his former cell a frightening testimony that questions the sustainability of our contemporary democracies.

Young Kids, Hard Time

January 2012 •English

Young Kids Hard Time explores the story of young children sentenced to adult prison for decades, through the eyes of 12-year old Paul Gingerich and 15-year old Colt Lundy, both serving 30 years in adult prison for killing Colt's stepdad.

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.

The American Matrix - Age Of Deception

January 2010 •English

A shocking new 2 hour film by B.A. Brooks. This 2010 release is a follow up to "The Decline And Fall Of America" which was released in 2008. "The American Matrix - Age Of Deception" details news items that all people should be aware of such as the economic collapse of The United States and the formation of the a New World Order. See what has really been going on in America today.

Privacy of Wounds

November 2018 •Arabic

Set as an experiment in a simulated cell in Oslo, three former political prisoners are locked up for three days with no film crew, to revisit their memories of Syria's darkest detention facilities.

Mula

October 2021 •Spanish

Francisco, Isabel, Fco. Javier and David are captured in different parts of the world when they worked as "mules" to overcome the crisis. They tell their stories from the deal that turned them into traffickers to their release from prison.