CinemaFilm festival that takes place in a prison in the USA; get to knowProject created in California and held for the first time in October seeks to encourage productions created by inmatestoday at 7:19 pm

In the United States, a new initiative seeks to help “people affected by the prison system be seen, heard and felt”.

This is the purpose of San Quentin Film Festivalwhich opens on October 10th and 11th at San Quentin State Penitentiary, California.

The project led by the former prisoner Rahsaan Thomas and the documentary filmmaker Cori Thomas – despite the same surname, they are not related in any way. The two met in 2016, when Cori visited the prison to do research for a podcast.

Rahsaan He was one of the first people I met there and he really changed my entire notion of what prison was. I went in with very low expectations about the kind of people I would meet and left feeling very embarrassed for having judged an entire group of people,” she said. Cori the Variety.

Media Center

The San Quentin penitentiary houses a media center that provides resources such as sound equipment, cameras and editing programs – all without Internet access. It was with the help of this center that the podcast “Ear Hustle”presented by Rahsaanwas done. The production addresses life inside prisons and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Before these opportunities, I was limited to what was possible in prison: cutting hair for food. I was limited to bullshit. I made $36 a month. From the podcast, I got paid $5,000. It was the first time I earned real money to take care of my children,” he explained. Rahsaan.

Cori She believed in the talent of the inmates and ended up becoming a sort of coordinator of the media center. “People used to give me their texts to look at, to give my opinion. One day, someone gave me a script and I said lightly: ‘We should have a festival here’”, he recalls. Cori. “Rahsaan was standing next to me. He turned around and said, ‘Are you serious?’”

So, the two got together to try to make the idea viable. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, contact between them was limited and the festival was no longer a viable and priority project.

In early 2023, Rahsaan was released from San Quentin. Thanks to his work as a presenter of “Ear Hustle” and involvement in other media center projects, he was able to contact non-profit organizations and entertainment industry representatives.

From this contact, Rahsaan and Cori began to gather funding for the festival, as well as inviting jurors, such as Mary-Louise Parker,Jeffrey wright, Billy Crudup, Kathy Najimy and Lawrence O’Donnell.

The jurors are responsible for evaluating one of the festival’s categories: the one focused on productions made by people who are in prison or have been previously arrested.

The other category is the opposite: it is dedicated to feature films made by people who have never served time, and the jurors are incarcerated people.

The decision to create these two categories reflects the desire to Rahsaan and Cori to ensure that prisoners are seen as knowledgeable authorities on what prison life is like.

The project also has a special focus on ensuring a livelihood and preventing recidivism in prison. And the results seem effective. None of the San Quentin media center participants were rearrested after their release.

I’m having a great life. Now I’m making more money legally than I did as a drug dealer. I was exposed to gunfire. I didn’t know about cameras,” he says Rahsaan.

After this edition in San Quentin, the two organizers intend to expand the festival to other prisons, giving life to an event that can host productions by prisoners around the world.

The path is long and laborious. But Rahsaan and Cori celebrate the results so far:

We exceeded the number of people we had agreed with those responsible for the prison. Today we have people asking, ‘Can I come in? Can I come in?’ I’ve never seen so many people want to go to prison before,” he says. Rahsaan