Inside the First Prison Film Festival at San Quentin

No standing ovation on the Cannes or Sundance movie festivals may match the distinctive emotional depth of 1 delivered to a filmmaker named B. Raheem Ballard on Thursday afternoon inside a stuffy chapel at San Quentin. 

That morning, Ballard, who has been incarcerated for 22 years on expenses of theft and homicide, missed the world premiere of a movie he directed, Dying Alone, and the follow-up Q&A with comic W. Kamau Bell, as a result of the occasion conflicted together with his parole board listening to.

“Fast replace,” stated one of many competition’s two emcees, Juan Moreno Haines, interrupting the afternoon awards ceremony. “Raheem was discovered appropriate.” Ballard, who had been sentenced to be in jail till 2039, had simply realized that he would quickly be launched, and he walked, blinking, right into a roaring crowd within the chapel. “I’m overwhelmed,” he stated. Moments later, Ballard’s film gained a prize from the Worldwide Documentary Affiliation, however he had left to name his household with the day’s information.

Some 300 individuals, together with American Fiction director Wire Jefferson, Sing Sing director Greg Kwedar, Simply Mercy producer Scott Budnick, The Inspection director Class Bratton and government producer of PBS’s POV collection, Erika Dilday, had been gathered in Chapel B for the San Quentin Movie Competition. The primary movie competition ever held inside a jail, the occasion came about Oct. 10 and 11 on the San Francisco Bay Space most correctional facility and featured screenings of Oscar contenders like A24’s Sing Sing and Netflix’s Daughters alongside movies made by present and previously incarcerated filmmakers. Sitting beside the trade figures within the viewers had been males, like Ballard, who’re at present incarcerated at San Quentin, sporting their blue California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation uniforms. 

Simply contained in the barbed wire fences and underneath the home windows of the constructing that housed California’s loss of life row till simply two months in the past, the morning started with a step-and-repeat purple carpet within the courtyard, the place a jail band performed and low and pastries had been served.

“I’m very anxious,” stated Louis Sale, whose 10-minute movie, Therapeutic Via Hula, can be premiering that morning. “I’m nervous to see how the story is obtained.” By the afternoon, Sale, a Hawaiian veteran who’s serving 15 years to life, had gained finest documentary brief for the film he made about an unlikely membership that practices hula dancing inside San Quentin. Throughout his feedback to the viewers, Sale devoted his movie to the Hawaiian tradition he had given up at age 14 “as a result of I assumed I used to be too cool” and to the person he had killed whereas drunk driving in 2016, Vivaldo Veloso.

The occasion was conceived by Cori Thomas, a playwright and San Quentin volunteer, and Rahsaan “New York” Thomas (no relation), co-host and producer of the award-winning Ear Hustle podcast, who was launched from San Quentin in 2023.  

All through the day, there have been indicators this was not your typical movie competition. San Quentin’s warden, Likelihood Andres, gave opening remarks wherein he praised the “good vibes” as corrections officers in inexperienced uniforms seemed on. The noon meal was baloney sandwiches and pretzels: “We didn’t fund the whole lot we needed, so y’all are getting state lunches,” Rahsaan stated. The facility briefly went out when too many followers had been working within the chapel, and nobody was allowed to convey a cellphone into the jail, making for a uncommon 2024 movie occasion the place everybody truly seemed to be wanting on the similar display screen within the entrance of the room. Throughout a filmmaker panel, one of many incarcerated administrators requested if there was anybody from the Tracy Morgan TBS present The Final O.G. within the viewers —there wasn’t, however he was checking as a result of he didn’t wish to offend when he described the present about an ex-con as inauthentic. “Your writers for these sorts of reveals, we’re in right here,” he stated. “Don’t guess, name me.” In presenting one of many day’s awards, Anthony Gomez, who participates in San Quentin’s movie and TV manufacturing coaching program Ahead This, declared, “I don’t learn about y’all, however immediately I be happy.”

For members of the Hollywood group in attendance, the occasion was a refreshing break from the norm. “This is among the most lovely days of my total life,” Jefferson stated. Kwedar, who’s at present on the awards path with Sing Sing, stated that course of “can simply devour your thought of what success is.” However sitting within the chapel at San Quentin, “I really feel restored. I simply really feel extra alive.”

Through the night’s screening of Sing Sing, which stars Colman Domingo and Paul Raci alongside a forged of previously incarcerated males, the viewers reacted to key moments and features, snapping fingers, leaning ahead of their seats and saying “that’s proper” and “preach” because the film about an arts program at Sing Sing Most Safety Jail unfolded. 

When the post-screening Q&A was nonetheless happening at 7:55pm, Haines paused the proceedings to say, “ what time it’s. Don’t miss rely,” a reminder for anybody within the viewers who was recognized as “shut custody,” that means underneath a stricter degree of supervision, to return to their cells.

“We symbolize y’all,” Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, an actor who served at Sing Sing and performs a model of himself within the movie, stated on the Q&A. “Thanks for the inspiration.”