INN Film Consulting & Multimedia Production.
To better educate the world, Incarcerated Nation Network has tirelessly worked to produce, consult on, and influence all forms of media, including films and documentaries. In fact, INN has played a pivotal role in the production of a significant number of national films shedding light on the harsh realities of solitary confinement torture.
Here are a few of our projects we’ve produced over the years…
Human Isolation & Perpetual Punishment
Below are some productions that educate the world about the torture of Solitary Confinement, a cruel & unusual punishment,
that confines thousands of men, women & children to a 6x9 solid wall cell for 23-24 hours a day, with no meaningful human contact.
We create tools for advocates & organizations that allow them to successfully educate others about their policy or reform.
Since 2010, there have been over 900 pieces of legislation across 42 states to restrict some form of solitary confinement.
N.Y.C.A.I.C 1st Promotional Video
The New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC) brings together advocates, formerly incarcerated persons, family members of currently incarcerated people, concerned community members, lawyers, and individuals in the human rights, health, and faith communities throughout New York State. Our small staff is made up of people directly affected by solitary confinement, and we have hundreds of active volunteers and thousands of individual and institutional supporters.
Our common goal is sweeping reform of New York’s use of solitary confinement and other forms of extreme isolation in state prisons and local jails. We pursue this goal through public education, community organizing, and support of the Humane Alternative to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, which is currently making its way through the New York State Legislature.CAIC welcomes all new members. To get involved, please contact Victor at vpate@nycaic.org, or feel free to join us at an upcoming meeting or event by checking our Events page.
MISSION The organizations and individuals who make up the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement agree on the following observations and principles.
We call on Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, and the New York State Legislature to act on these observations and principles to reform New York’s abusive isolated confinement policies and practices.
Breaking Down the Box," which examines the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. This 40-minute documentary explores the mental health, racial justice, and human rights implications of this inhumane practice. And it serves as a call to action for communities of faith to engage in the growing nationwide movement for restorative alternatives to isolated confinement that prioritize rehabilitation, therapeutic interventions, and recovery. AFSC Healing Justice staffers Laura Magnani and Jerry Elster are among those interviewed. Produced by filmmaker Five Mualimmak & Matthew Gossage. More resources at National Religious Campaign Against Torture.
Breaking Down The Box
Last Week Tonight:
Solitary Confinement
• Apr 3, 2023
John Oliver discusses solitary confinement, how prevalent it is, how damaging it can be, and, of course, how to hit the woah.John Oliver discusses solitary confinement which was called different names in different places due to the bad reputation it consists. Nevertheless, whatever is the name is the effect is equally dire on the inmates. He talks about how harmful it is, the history of it, and what steps are needed to be taken to improve the situation.
Adam Ruins Everything: PRISON
NOV 20 2016
Adam goes behind bars to reveal how corporations make money off of inmates, expose the myth of jail rehabilitation and illustrate why solitary confinement is akin to torture. Here are his sources. co produced by Incarcerated Nation Networks Executive Director Five Mualummak and Adam Conover through a collaberative effort that included survivors of mass incarceration from LA to NYC
Fifteendays.org Interactive WebSite + Short
In the US today, more than 80,000 people - men, women, and children - live up to 23 hours a day in tiny cells without natural light, air, or human contact. Many remain there for months, years, or even decades.
The UN's expert on torture considers more than 15 days in solitary confinement a human rights violation. The US is the only democratic nation that makes widespread use of long-term solitary confinement in its prisons, even for minor, nonviolent infractions as simple as having too many postage stamps. Is solitary confinement torture? What effect does it have on the people who endure it?
Five Mualimmak was in solitary confinement for five years of his 12-year sentence. He was kept in a windowless, gray concrete cell for violations as simple as having more than 7 pencils, which he used to draw portraits, or failing to finish his food. After 40,000 hours without any human contact, he lapsed into irrational rage and delirium, and permanently lost aspects of cognitive ability and any grasp of his personality—which only kept the infractions coming, adding to his indefinite stay in “the box.” Mualimmak was finally released from solitary and directly back onto the streets when his prison sentence ended.
The Deeper They Bury Me: Interactive Website
Herman Wallace is speaking from Louisiana’s Angola jail, where he’s been kept in solitary confinement for over 40 years. The phone line may be static, but the voice is unbroken.
The Deeper They Bury Me is an interactive encounter with one of America’s most famous political prisoners—and an indictment of a criminal justice system that confined him to a cement tomb for most of his adult life.
Within a window of 20 precious minutes, the time allotted for a prison call, users are invited to imagine Wallace’s universe, navigating between his six-by-nine-foot cell and the dream home he envisions with artist Jackie Sumell.
Deftly overlaying Wallace’s voice with sparsely poetic animation, Angad Singh Bhalla, Tedd Biggs (Storyline Entertainment) and NFB craft an utterly original perspective on North America’s prison industrial complex, evoking Wallace’s segregated childhood and his courageous efforts to build community within prison.
6x9 : A Virtual Experience of Solitary Confinement
What’s it like to spend 23 hours a day in a cell measuring 6x9 feet for days, weeks, months or even years? 6x9 is the Guardian's first virtual reality experience, which places you inside a US solitary confinement prison cell and tells the story of the psychological damage that can ensue from isolation.
We've created a mobile app allowing you to fully experience VR on your own, with or without cardboard viewer. If you don't have a smartphone scroll down to watch the 360° video.
Take the 360 degree video experience of solitary confinement in US prisons, which places viewers in a virtual segregation cell they can explore and interact with. It highlights the psychological effects of long-term solitary confinement for people who have experienced it first-hand around the world.
Going Home follows two individuals, Yvette and Five, whose experiences in solitary confinement have empowered them to change the Corrections system. Yvette is a transgender woman, who was placed in solitary confinement for her own protection, and Five was placed in the box after receiving a book about the Black Panthers. The two subjects are united in their mission to reform the use of solitary confinement throughout the state. All over New York, 4,500 people are locked up in extreme isolation everyday.
Going Home: Solitary Survivors
Hermans House
Herman Wallace may be the longest-serving prisoner in solitary confinement in the United States — he's spent more than 40 years in a 6-by-9-foot cell in Louisiana. Imprisoned in 1967 for a robbery he admits, he was subsequently sentenced to life for a killing he vehemently denies. Herman's House is a moving account of the remarkable expression his struggle found in an unusual project proposed by artist Jackie Sumell.
Imagining Wallace's "dream home" began as a game and became an interrogation of justice and punishment in America. The film takes us inside the duo's unlikely 12-year friendship, revealing the transformative power of art. A co-presentation with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM).
Tells the shocking and unbelievable story of Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King, three black men from rural Louisiana who were held in solitary confinement in the biggest prison in the U.S., an 18,000-acre former slave plantation known as Angola. Woodfox and Wallace, founding members of the first prison chapter of the Black Panther Party, worked along with King to speak out against the inhumane treatment and racial segregation in the prison. King was released in 2001 after almost thirty years of solitary confinement.
Woodfox and Wallace, convicted in the highly contested stabbing death of white prison guard Brent Miller, remain in Angola where they have spent more than thirty-six years in solitary confinement. Made aware of their plight, Congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, visited Wallace and Woodfox in prison in March 2008. This documentary tells the ongoing story of the case of these three extraordinary men.
Narrated by Samual L. Jackson
In The Land of The Free
Cruel And Unusual
"Cruel and Unusual" is the story of three men who have spent longer in solitary confinement than any other prisoners in the US because of the murder of a prison guard in 1972 at Angola, the Louisiana state penitentiary. Robert King, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were convicted by bribed and blind eye witnesses and with no physical evidence.
Targeted as members of the Black Panther party the film follows their struggle against the miscarriage of justice and their cruel and unusual treatment. Their story culminated in 2016 with the release of Albert Woodfox after 43 years in solitary confinement.
Director
“The wHOLE,” a new dramatic web series created to shed light on what many call the inhumane and tortuous practice of placing men, women, and children in a cell, alone, with no human contact for 24 hours a day and, in some well-documented cases, for up to 30 years at a time. The series dramatizes the story of Marcus Williams, who spends time in 'the Hole', aka solitary confinement.
Similar to other prison-based shows such as “The Wire” or “Oz,” the filmmakers hope to show the issue from several viewpoints. The actor who portrays Marcus is William Brown, a former federal and state prisoner who went to jail in real life for armed robbery and eventually spent some 18 months in solitary confinement spread while incarcerated. Brown studied acting after joining a prison thespians program.
The WHOLE
webseries
Burns and his fellow-narrators, Five Mualimm-ak and Pamela Winn, share their stories as actors relive their experiences onscreen. These threads are slowly woven together, and as they coalesce viewers are confronted with the sheer cruelty that the three faced during their combined nine years in isolation.
Cries for help are met with violent disregard, and this only further accelerates their deterioration. In solitary confinement, human touch becomes as precious as water in the desert. In one particularly affecting scene, as the actor playing him is violently beaten by guards, Burns says that “having punches being rained down on you was better than not having any contact at all.”
For those who aren’t acquainted with this especially brutal feature of the U.S. carceral system, “The Box” is unsettling and evocative. It’s also a wakeup call. The documentary is not just about the narrators’ personal trauma but about the reality that this country contains, as Five puts it, these “safe spaces for pain and punishment and torture to happen—and we pay for it.” We are left to ask ourselves why.
The BOX
Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison
Built on an Appalachian mountaintop, Red Onion State Prison (one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US built to hold inmates in solitary confinement in 8’x10’ cells for 23 hours a day) is nearly 300 miles from any urban center. Inmates are placed in solitary confinement by prison authorities, they are not sentenced to it by a judge or jury.
In the immersive Solitary, filmmaker Kristi Jacobson (A Place at the Table) gained unprecedented access to Red Onion and its residents, capturing its chilling sounds and haunting atmosphere. In startlingly intimate and reflective interviews with the inmates, Jacobson discovers their violent childhoods, the dangers of prison life, and their struggles to maintain sanity in the unrelenting monotony of confinement.
Interwoven with their stories are the voices of the corrections officers, who are serving a different type of time right alongside the prisoners, while they struggle to maintain their humanity. As the prison initiates a reform program to reduce the number of inmates held in solitary, the process provides an unexpected window into life on both sides of the bars.
Filmed over the course of one year, Solitary tells the stories of people caught in the complex American penal system and raises provocative questions about punishment in America today.
Additional Productions
Additional Productions
RIKERS An American Jail
Five Mualimm-ak - Mark levine - Marc Benjamin- Bill Moyers presents: Rikers An American Jail: Produced by Brian Stevenson The United States is facing a crisis of mass incarceration with over 2.2 million people packed into its jails and prisons. To understand the human toll of this crisis, Riker's Island is a good place to start. Of the more than 7,500 people detained at Riker's Island on any given day, almost 80% have not yet been found guilty or innocent of the charges they face. All are at risk in the pervasive culture of violence that forces people to come to terms with what they must do for their own survival.
RIKERS: AN AMERICAN JAIL, a riveting new documentary from Bill Moyers, Five Mualimm-ak & Brian Stevenson, brings you face to face with men and women who have endured incarceration at Riker's Island. Their stories, told direct to camera, vividly describe the cruel arc of the Riker's experience—from the shock of entry, to the extortion and control exercised by other detainees, the oppressive interaction with corrections officers, the beatings and stabbings, the torture of solitary confinement and the many challenges of returning to the outside world.
TAKEOVER
IN 1970, A GROUP OF YOUNG PUERTO RICAN ACTIVISTS TOOK OVER A DECREPIT HOSPITAL IN NEW YORK CITY, LAUNCHING A BATTLE FOR THEIR LIVES, THEIR COMMUNITY, AND HEALTHCARE FOR ALL.
Takeover explores the twelve historic hours on July 14, 1970, in which fifty members of the Young Lords Party stormed the dilapidated Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx, drove out their administrative staff, barricaded entrances and windows, and made their cries for decent healthcare known to the world. They raised the Puerto Rican flag atop the building, as well as a banner reading “The People’s Hospital” – a nom de guerre still used today. Through archival footage, seamless reenactments, and modern-day interviews, we follow the Young Lords’ resistance against institutions curated by wealth and white supremacy, and their fight for the most basic of human rights: the right to accessible, quality healthcare.
Takeover! endeavors to capture the imagination of a new generation of activists, and suggest actions that ordinary citizens can take to change the conversation — and the country. It is more vital than ever before that the bravery and behavior of the Young Lords be shown, celebrated, and built upon today.
After serving eight years in prison, reformed gang leader S. Lance Ingram re-enters society and struggles to adapt to a changed Harlem. Living under the tough supervision of a parole officer in a halfway house, he is unable to find a job that will let him use the technological skills he gained in prison. Lance is forced to take a job delivering for a food pantry where he befriends Ms. Maddy (LORETTA DEVINE), a strong and spirited grandmother, and assumes responsibility for her 15-year-old grandson Ty, a promising student who is pulled into a dangerous street gang.
When gang members decide to punish Ty for disobeying the “law of the streets,” Lance risks sacrificing his “second chance” at freedom so that Ty can have a “first chance” at a better life.
STARRING:
Daniel Beaty
Omari Hardwick
Loretta Devine
Selenis Leyva
Chapter & Verse
A film about the prison and its life in the American landscape.
More people are imprisoned in the United States at this moment than in any other time or place in history, yet the prison itself has never felt further away or more out of sight. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is a film about the prison in which we never see a penitentiary. Instead, the film unfolds as a cinematic journey through a series of landscapes across the USA where prisons do work and affect lives, from a California mountainside where female prisoners fight raging wildfires, to a Bronx warehouse full of goods destined for the state correctional system, to an Appalachian coal town betting its future on the promise of prison jobs.
With support from Cinereach, Vital Projects Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the National Film Board of Canada.
The Prison In Twelve Landscapes
A film about the prison and its life in the American landscape.
More people are imprisoned in the United States at this moment than in any other time or place in history, yet the prison itself has never felt further away or more out of sight. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is a film about the prison in which we never see a penitentiary. Instead, the film unfolds as a cinematic journey through a series of landscapes across the USA where prisons do work and affect lives, from a California mountainside where female prisoners fight raging wildfires, to a Bronx warehouse full of goods destined for the state correctional system, to an Appalachian coal town betting its future on the promise of prison jobs.
With support from Cinereach, Vital Projects Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the National Film Board of Canada.
Prison KIDS
Judas and The Black Messiah
Judas and the Black Messiah is a 2021 American biographical crime drama film directed and produced by Shaka King, who wrote the screenplay with Will Berson, based on a story by the pair and Kenny and Keith Lucas. The film is about the betrayal of Fred Hampton (played by Daniel Kaluuya), chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late-1960s Chicago, by William O'Neal (played by LaKeith Stanfield), an FBI informant. Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Ashton Sanders, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Lil Rel Howery, Algee Smith, Dominique Thorne, and Martin Sheen also star.
A Fred Hampton biopic had been in the works for several years, with the Lucas brothers and Will Berson writing and shopping screenplays individually since 2014. Berson's version almost got made with F. Gary Gray directing, but King was hired to direct when that fell through. The cast joined in 2019, with the blessings of Hampton's family, with filming beginning that fall in Ohio.
Judas and the Black Messiah earned six Oscar nominations at the 93rd Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for both Kaluuya and Stanfield, with the former winning, and Best Original Song ("Fight for You"). For his performance, Kaluuya also won Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes, Critics' Choice Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and BAFTA Awards. Since then, it has been cited as one of the best films of the 2020s and the 21st century.
Harvest Of Empire
A powerful documentary that exposes the direct connection between the long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the immigration crisis we face today. From the territorial expansionist policies that decimated the young economies of Mexico, Puerto Rico and Cuba, to the covert operations that imposed oppressive military regimes in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador,
Harvest of Empire provides an unflinching look at the origins of the growing Latino presence in the United States. Adapted from the landmark book written by journalist Juan Gonzalez, the film tells the story of an epic human saga that is largely unknown to the great majority of citizens in the U.S., but must become part of our national conversation about immigration.
Pops Documentry
Pops tells three stories of African Americans from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds and regions deeply engaged in the beautiful struggle of fatherhood.
Pops is a documentary web series about African American men facing the toughest challenge of their lives: becoming good fathers. Pops addresses the reality and challenges of 21st century parenthood for African American fathers. The media narrative of the deadbeat black father is generally accepted as a fact of life for African American children. Buried beneath these assumptions are the facts of black fatherhood that dispel some of those stereotypes.
The web series follows the parenting experiences of Shaka Senghor, LaGuardia Cross, and the Stroman-Iniss family during the course of a year. Each father explores the universal themes of responsibility, nurturing and love. They differ in personalities, socioeconomic backgrounds and struggles but share the collective experience of fatherhood.
Their stories serve to reflect the reality of black fathers in America. Shot in verité documentary style rich with raw, intimate moments, each character reveals what fatherhood looks like in their world.
The House I Live In
For the past 40 years, the war on drugs has resulted in more than 45 million arrests, $1 trillion dollars in government spending, and America’s role as the world’s largest jailer. Yet for all that, drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available than ever. Filmed in more than twenty states, The House I Live In captures heart-wrenching stories of those on the front lines — from the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, the inmate to the federal judge — and offers a penetrating look at the profound human rights implications of America’s longest war.
The film recognizes drug abuse as a matter of public health, and investigates the tragic errors and shortcomings that have resulted from framing it as an issue for law enforcement. It also examines how political and financial corruption has fueled the war on drugs, despite persistent evidence of its moral, economic, and practical failures. The drug war in America has helped establish the largest prison-industrial system in the world, contributing to the incarceration of 2.3 million men and women and is responsible for untold collateral damage to the lives of countless individuals and families, with a particularly destructive impact on black America.
“It’d be one thing if it was draconian and it worked. But it’s draconian and it doesn’t work. It just leads to more,” says David Simon, creator of the HBO series, The Wire.
Instead of questioning a campaign of such epic cost and failure, those in public office generally advocate for harsher penalties for drug offenses, lest they be perceived as soft on crime. Thanks to mandatory minimum sentencing, a small offense can put a nonviolent offender behind bars for decades — or even life. Many say these prisoners are paying for fear instead of paying for their crime.
“If you stand in a federal court, you’re watching poor and uneducated people being fed into a machine like meat to make sausage. It’s just bang, bang, bang, bang. Next!” says journalist Charles Bowden.
But there’s a growing recognition among those on all sides that the war on drugs is a failure. At a time of heightened fiscal instability, the drug war is also seen as economically unsustainable. Beyond its human cost at home, the unprecedented violence in Mexico provides a daily reminder of the war’s immense impact abroad, and America has at last begun to take the first meaningful steps toward reform. At this pivotal moment, the film promotes public awareness of the problem while encouraging new and innovative pathways to domestic drug policy reform..
Escape AT Dannemora
Escape at Dannemora is an American crime drama television limited series that premiered on Showtime on November 18, 2018. It is based on the 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape. The seven-episode series was created and written by Brett Johnson and Michael Tolkin and directed by Ben Stiller. It stars Benicio del Toro, Patricia Arquette, Paul Dano, Bonnie Hunt, Eric Lange, and David Morse.
The series is based on the true story of the 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility escape in upstate New York. The escape prompted a massive manhunt for the two convicted murderers, who were aided in their escape by a married female prison employee with whom they both became sexually entangled. The small sleepy town of Dannemora is home to the Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison. Two inmates, Richard Matt and David Sweat become entangled in the life of a married female prison employee in the summer of 2015. Tilly Mitchell, an employee at Clinton Correctional Facility becomes romantically entangled with both convicts and aids in their escape from the facility. Emmy winner Ben Stiller executive produces and directs all episodes.
Clemency
Years of carrying out death row executions are taking a toll on Warden Bernadine Williams. As she prepares for another one, Williams must confront the psychological and emotional demons that her job creates.
Starring Alfre Woodard. A Film by Chinonye Chukwu. In Theaters December 27, 2019. #Clemency Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard). As she prepares to execute another prisoner, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.
An amazing film that shines a light on the death penalty from the perspective of those who are impacted daily, family members, prisoners, and correctional staff alike.
America Divided
Released in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, AMERICA DIVIDED is an EPIX Original docu-series, executive produced by Norman Lear, Shonda Rhimes, and Common, features narratives around inequality in education, housing, healthcare, labor, criminal justice, and the political system — all woven into an eight-story, five-part series.
The show follows high-profile correspondents as they explore aspects of inequality related to their own biographies. Correspondents include Common, Rosario Dawson, America Ferrera, Zach Galifianakis, Norman Lear, Amy Poehler, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jesse Williams. Now Streaming on EPIX.com.
This series cuts to the heart of the inequality crisis, exploring life-and-death struggles around the economic, social and political divide. Our aim is to expose the damage extreme inequality inflicts on all Americans, reveal its systemic causes, and celebrate real-world heroes fighting for solutions.
Created by Solly Granatstein, Lucian Read, and Richard Rowley.
According to the Department of Justice, 2.2 million people languish in America's prisons and jails. Many of them have families on the outside, who serve a sentence of their own while awaiting their loved ones' release. The Waiting follows three families and examines what the outside day-to-day looks like when a family member is inside serving time.
The film takes a deep dive into how families cope when a loved one is locked behind bars. "The Waiting" follows three families who live every day with the paradox of trying to actively move forward while consumed by the stagnating act of waiting for a loved one to return. All three families are at different stages in their wait, and their stories demonstrate that incarceration affects not only those behind bars, but also the people who love them.
The Waiting
