To Escape(2026) Telluride 2026

David Roberts brings his latest film to Telluride 2026 and kicks ass. This is a deeply affecting film that moved me.

The film is a collection of film clips from various prison films cut together to the music of Philip Glass. Its a look at the cinematic prison experience and the efforts to escape.

This is a glorious cinematic tone poem. Its a film that doesn't tell a story as such, rather it simply creates a headspace. Its a headspace that foreces us to consider what prison truly is. I was rocked.  It forced me to truly rethink what I thought. 

I loved this film. I loved it so much I watched it a couple of times.

This is a great filmmaking from a great filmmaker...and its even better than last year's SONG OF MY CITY which played TCM

Beyond (2025) DOC NYC 2025

 BEYOND is one of the great films at DOC NYC which makes it one of the great films of 2025.

The film is from co-directors Asia Johnson and Michael Kleiman and was executive produced by Clarence Maclin, who was in the film SING SING. It follows a group of men in Sing Sing as they prepare for series of TED Talk style lecturess where a group of inmates speak about prison life and how it can be improved for the men and the society that they will one day rejoin.

This is a glorious film. It is a “you are there” tale that feels like a continuation of SING SING, which makes you realize how much the earlier film got right. It is a film that breaks down the walls and makes clear that the men in prison are not monsters, but human beings.

I was moved. After I saw the film, I was reaching out to not only my friends in the film world to tell them to cover the film, but also my friends in the criminal justice world to put it on their must see lists. Yes, it is that good, and yes, it will change things up for the better if it gets seen.

I don’t know what else to say- but I have no notes.

See this wonderful film and be moved.

INSIDE (2025) Tribeca 2025

Mel (Vincent Miller) is a young convict that was moved from juvenile detention to an adult prison on his way out of the system. There he makes the aquaintence of an older con, also heading for release named Warren Murfett (Guy Pearce). As Warren tries to help Mel another con begins to influence the young man.

Almost every year Tribeca seems to have some sort of prison drama and this year it's INSIDE. It's a good prison drama  that keeps us wondering how its going to play out.

I liked INSIDE a great deal. It's a solid drama that doesn't do most of the things that you expect from prison dramas. For me the highlight was Guy Pearce, who for the first time in my experience doesn't play big. Pearce is playing a supporting role and keeping it very real. He is just a guy. I had to do a double take because he turned off the look at me charisma with the result he, wonderfully, didn't overpower the screen.

Definitely worth a look.

THE STRIKE (2024) Hot Docs 2024

This is the story of the hunger strike at Pelican Bay SHU, and across California in 2011 that brought an end to the wholesale warehousing of inmates. It is told by the men who were at Pelican Bay and participated in the strike.

This is a super film. Focusing not just on the strike, but also on how and why the  prison was built, how it affected the men who stayed there and their loved ones, this is film that really makes you understand how there is a problem with how we deal with the people who commit crimes. It’s a film that doesn’t lecture, but instead is like sitting in a bar with a friend and having them tell you their story. Its put together in  a way that doesn’t just throw facts and figures at you but makes you think and change your mind. Where other film tell you things but still leave you disconnected, this is a film that connects you and brings you waves of emotion as we see what happened and how these men changed the world.

This is such a good film.

No matter where you stand on criminal justice you need to see this film because it makes the discussion one you can relate to on a personal level.

Highly recommended.

The 50 (2022) and 26.2 TO LIFE (2022) DOC NYC 2022

THE 50
Excellent look at how the California penal system decided to help fight over crowding by training inmates to be come substance abuse counselors. The plan was that the inmates might be able to help those in  need find away to stay out of prison.

This is great film. This is a wonderful tale of hope and redemption as we get to see the men work to help each other and themselves. It's a wonderful look at how the world can be changed if we only look at things differently.

How good is the film? After the screening I received and email from friend who works in a related field and he wanted to make sure that I saw the film. Additionally he mentioned that he was so impressed by what he saw in the film he was going to be changing his hiring practices to look to bring in counselors with similar backgrounds because their experience is a help. Honestly I can't give a bigger recommendation than that.

Highly recommended  

26.2 TO LIFE 
A look at the San Quentin 1000 Mile runners club. The club trains inmates to run in a marathon. The race is held in the yard of the prison and involves over a hundred circles. Through the discipline required to run  the men find there lives have been changed as they realize that ultimately they can do anything they set their minds to.

I know this film film hits all of the expected marks, but at the same time the film is deeply moving. Say what you will I got misty at the end. I fell in with the men in the film and I was cheering them by the end. Actually I was enjoying the film so much I was seriously considering  going to the public DOC NYC screening just so I could meet them in person.

What a wonderful story of hope.

Recommended.

The Sky is Red (2022) Neighboring Scenes 2022

This is a reconstruction of the 2010 San Miguel prison fire in Santiago, Chile that took the lives of 81 people. The fire started during an altercation between factions in the prison and officials didn’t spring into action to stop the violence or the flames. The film is a reconstruction using the evidence from court proceedings consisting of documents, CCTV footage, photographs, eyewitness testimony and news reports.

Slowly building and hypnotic in a way The Sky is Red is like watching a terrible car accident in slow motion. You know how it’s going to go but at the same time you are powerless to stop it. It is a kind of waking nightmare because very early on you realize that the whole thing was a kind of foregone conclusion with the construction of the “houses” in the prison dooming everyone from the outset.

I was horrified at how it went down with one prisoner saying that the guards he  was trying to tell about the fire didn’t care and effectively said let them burn.

While the pacing of the film can seem slow, there is no narration and you have to pay attention, the film is a kick in the chest of slowly building sadness. Yea the victims may have been prisoners but no one should die like that

Recommended.

PRISON CIRCLE (2019) Japan Cuts 2020

Intriguing look at a prison program that aims to help prisoners come to terms with what they did and to help make them ready for life outside of prison.

One of the of the better prison documentary I've seen recently makes you wonder how the program would work in the United States. Actually the treatment of prisoners in the Japanese prison makes you wonder why we are so set on abusing our prisoners instead of trying to actual help the prisoners.

The one thing that is going to make this is a tough slog fo some is that in accordance with Japanese law all the faces of the prisoners and prison guards are blurred. It makes for an odd viewing experience since you are forced to go along with it to be able to follow all the prisoners.

Recommended

For information on this or other Japan Cuts Films go here.

A Nun's Curse (2020) hits home video Tuesday

Forced to stop at various locations as the condition to using the family vacation home, a group of friends is forced to stop and take pictures along the way of various ruined buildings by the youngest member of the group. Stopping at an abandoned prison they are forced to spend the night when a storm suddenly comes up. The prison was the home of Sister Monday, a nun suspected of killing prisoners. The not so good sister disappeared before she could be brought to justice. Unfortunately for the group they will soon realize that disappeared doesn't mean gone.

While the film possesses some creepy moments and some really cool images A NUN'S CURSE is largely a case of covering well worn ground. Nor only does it check off the boxes for the evil nun genre, but also the haunted prison genre and the disappeared boogeyman (insert your favorite) genre. The result is a film that, aside from the odd moment never generates real scares. It's not that the film does anything wrong, it simply is taking the most traveled path imaginable.

While never bad it is never great.

The Prison Within (2020) Santa Barbara 2020

The Prison Within Trailer from Raw Love Productions on Vimeo.
Prison Within may very well be one of the best films of 2020. The year is still young but this out of nowhere masterpiece is a cage rattler of the right sort.

The film is an examination of what trauma does to us. More specifically it is focused on how the violence and abuse visited upon us turns some to crime and thus spreads the trauma onward. The film focuses on group in San Quentin prison which meets weekly to discuss the pain in the prisoners lives and the pain they have caused and then works to sort it out. We also get to hear from victims and the people running the various programs. The result is a visceral gut punch of the film that lays it all on the table.

This film caught me unaware. I was a typical prison film with some shots of the men talking, associated talking heads and very serious narration. I was expecting a good film that checked all the boxes and then moved on to the next thing. What I got instead was a film that didn’t check the boxes, what it did was checked the box and then explored the box. The men in the circle don’t just say something meaningful before we move on to the next thing, rather they talk at length about their lives and explain what they feel and why. The camera doesn’t cut away we are there and they are talking to us and the others in the room, and the result we are pulled deeper and deeper. What they are telling us hits home and we go from thinking we understand what the point of it all is to deeply and emotionally completely understanding (or as much as we can get from a 90 minute film)

I am absolutely floored. I am so floored that I know I am going to need another pass at this film to truly be able to write about it and discuss it. As it is I can’t say how important it is for you to just go see this film. An absolute must see of the highest order.

45 Seconds of Laughter (2019) NYFF 2019

If you laugh for at least 45 seconds you will release enough endorphins that it will change the way you feel. It is one of the exercises used by The Prison Project, a program administered by the L.A. theater troupe The Actors’ Gang to help prisoners in various California prisons in order to help them change their lives. 45 SECONDS OF LAUGHTER is also the title of Tim Robbins excellent documentary about the The Prison Project.

To be honest the last thing I wanted to see at the New York Film festival was another film about a program to help prisoners change their lives. I say this after sitting through Lynn Novick‘s excellent COLLEGE BEHIND BARS, which I thought was the be all and end all on prison programs. As a result I delayed in watching 45 Seconds, which was a major mistake on my part...45SECONDS is simply great

An glorious observational film the camera watches the men in the program, which director Tim Robbins is part of as they go through various acting exercises and lessons preparing to perform a piece from the Commedia dell’arte. We watch as then men go from giving the lessons a shot to truly falling into them.

Thanks to Tim Robbin’s letting the sequences play out in extended takes we witness as genuine change happens. As a result we see how important these programs are and how, perhaps society is changing.

As good as the film is as documenting the program, the film transcends its simple story to be about something larger. In revealing the story of the inmates the film provides us with a way of changing the we see the world. What the men in the film are told about changing how they see and interact with the world can be used by those of us in the audience to make our lives better. Sure some of us may have a good world view but some of us don’t and this may help.

This is a great film. One of the must sees if the festival.

It’s so good that I can’t wait to see it again and ponder what’s in it.

The film plays today at the New York Film Festival today at 615 and Saturday at 12:15. For more information and tickets go here.

College Behind Bars (2019) NYFF 2019

College Behind Bars is a very good look at the Bard University program that gives inmates in the New York prison system a chance at a college education. Over the course of four episodes the series follows several inmates over the course of the studies and we get to see them and the changes becoming better educated has on their lives in prison and hopefully outside.

I need to make a full disclosure at the start, I was given the four episodes to watch about three weeks before they premiered at the NYFF where they are running in marathon screenings. I am not sure how those seeing the film reacted to the film when it was run as a four hour movie, but my attempt to do that failed about ten or twenty minutes into the second episode. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the material, rather I felt that I needed to take time to process what I was seeing. Watching it all in one shot made it start to compress a bit, things began to run together. When the feeling came on I stopped and I walked away and finished the second episode several hours later and then I spaced out the remaining two episodes over the next two days. I mention the need to space things out because as good as the series is, and it’s a great series, the basic idea of the film runs very close to several other documentaries that talk about the life changing effect prison programs have on inmates lives. Honestly we’ve seen this before and watching the film in a block the film flattens and it can make you wonder why this is four hours. I stopped the marathon when I realized I had almost two and a half hours to go.

But College Behind Bars transcends the “been here and done that” feeling because the length of time allows us to really and truly see the difference the education makes in the lives of the inmates. We really see the men and women change over time. We are on the journey with them and not jumping through mere feel good moments. Additionally we get more details. We really get to know the people being profiled. And most importantly we become more solidly informed about the issues concerning providing programs like this. Having four hours to explore the people and issues results in something truly special.

And I’m glad I got to see it in pieces. I’m glad I got to ponder what I was seeing instead of being overwhelmed. I know had I seen this at one of the public screenings I simply would have been overwhelmed, all the information both personal and sociological would have crushed me making any sort of post screening discussion difficult.

Ultimately College Behind Bars is a great series. In this age where we are trying to reform criminal justice this series must be part of the discussion

The series screens again at the NYFF on September 30 (Tickets here)
It will air on PBS November 25 and 26.

Out Of State (2017) Portland Film Festival 2017

One of the closing night films at the Portland Film Festival is an eye opening and deeply moving film about going far from home only to turn to the ways of home as a means of survival.

Kalani, David and Hale are three native Hawaiians who were sent to a prison in Arizona because of overcrowding.  Cut off from friends and family back home the men turn toward the community of similar men in order to find a place to belong, sanity and potentially a way out of the cycle of crime.

Intriguing and gripping film shows a part of life that I had never heard of. Normally when you think of men in prison you think of gangs and violence and these men have turned things in a positive direction.  Focusing not only their lives in prison they also focus on life outside, David and Hale are released and have to deal with the difficulties of just getting by. The film also highlights the trouble of what happens when we send people so far away they kind of get forgotten by friends family and society.

This is a super film. Its one of the best at this year's Portland Film Festival and is highly recommended when it plays tonight.

In Brief WITH PRISONERS (2017) NYAFF 2017

Harrowing tale of a tough as nails gang leader thrown into juvenile detention after a bar fight. The beatings and humiliations he receive there push him to the very edge...

Solid prison drama goes wonky in the last third as the prison drama turns into social justice tract toward making the system change. The second part isn't bad but it is a bit too preachy to satisfy after such a dark first hour.

Still its very much worth a look.

Ariela goes to RIKERS (2016) DOC NYC 2016

Rikers documentary is the first documentary to focus exclusively on people who have survived the nightmare of being at Riker’s Island.

America has more people in jail than anywhere else in the world. There are 7,500 people at Rikers Island yearly. 80% of the people at Rikers Island have not been convicted of a crime. Most are waiting trial and can’t afford the $1,000 and below bail. 40% have a mental disorder. Nearly 40% who get out, come back in 3 years.

The documentary focused on several men and women who have made it to Rikers and back. The scary thing is that no story was unique. They all had horrible horrible stories. They told stories of how as soon as you entered it smells bad, and looks dirty. You need a weapon to protect yourself. The answer to violence is more violence. If someone is more violent, the other person backs down. You can’t show any signs of weakness. You have to do as you’re told or will get beaten up. The cops are corrupt. They sell drugs and cigarettes to the inmates. They rape the inmates. They beat them up. There were over 4,000 cases of guards using force in 2015 alone. Some men told stories of getting concussions, broken bones, one had to be in a wheelchair for a month and a half because he was so badly beat up. They tell stories of the horrible disgusting situation of solitary confinement. They tell stories of how their sanity got chipped away.

The film ends by telling where each person is now, which I always like. Next year there is going to be a vote on whether Rikers Island should be shut down or not.

This documentary was intense. It gives you an inside look at stories most of us are unaware of. It’s dark and depressing and horrible but I think this is a really important film for people to see

Rikers premiers Saturday November 12th at DOC NYC Festival, and will be screened on channel Thirteen on Tuesday November 15 at 10pm.

Abashiri Prison (1965) New York Asian Film Festival 2015

First in a series of 11 or so films made Ken Takakura a superstar when it was released.

The film concerns Takakura who is tossed into what is concerned the Japanese Alcatraz, a prison in the far north of Japan.  Trying to deal with staying on the good side of the prisoners so he can get out on parole, he also has to deal with the guilt for having left his put upon mother who's second husband was a drunk bastard. When word arrives that his mother is dying of breast cancer Takakura gets involved with a prison break.

Good little action film left me with one big question- how the hell did this spawn 10 direct sequels and a few additional related ones? Don't get me wrong I like this film- I just have no idea  why this clicked so much with audiences. Takakura's back story is pure soap opera, the prison stuff is more amusing than gripping and the characters are cliche. Its enjoyable but the source of a series?

The film does score in two key areas-

First the snow bound look of the film is largely unlike any film I've ever run across. Yes RUNAWAY TRAIN echoes the look of this film, but the deep snow that fills this film and hampers the long final escape sequence makes this film stand out.

Secondly the escape is amazing. Containing several set pieces that are truly awesome (the tram chase and the train encounter) this final section has enough moments to keep the whole fixed in your mind. The sequence, removed from the larger plot is truly amazing, the trouble is that its tethered to cliches of the plot and it takes the edge off all of everything.

I'm not sure that either the snow or the escape warrant the creation of sequels but as a stand alone this is a pretty good film.

Starred Up(2013) tribeca 2014

One of the best films screening at Tribeca this year Starred Up is  a movie that anyone who wants to see a great film should have on their radar.

The film is the story of Eric Love. He’s a 19 year old ball of rage who’s solution to anything is to beat it to a bloody pulp first and ask question later (He beats a man up mistakenly when the man approaches him to give him the lighter he asked for). As the film opens Love has been moved from the juvenile facility to an adult one because he’s starred up, meaning he’s violent and out of control. The twist is that the prison is the same one that his long absent father has been incarcerated in. His father is well connected but at the same time there is only so much he can do to protect his boy. Eric ends up on the radar of an anger management counselor who’s group may hold the key to changing him.

Let’s get it out of the way this film is violent and bloody. The language is rough. This is not your old school prison film. This is probably closer to the way it really is than any other film, especially considering the film was written by someone who works in the prison system. If you can’t handle violence and language stay away.

By any standard this is a gripping drama. This is the story of young man being thrown in the deep and being forced to fend for himself. It’s a film that doesn’t seem to pull any punches. It doesn’t drift into cliché. It doesn’t have a grand transcendent moment it just is a damn fine drama that just feels right.

While the film is all about Eric, the film is also about his dad Nate. Nate is a lifer who hasn’t seen his son in years because he’s been in prison. When Eric shows up he doesn’t know what to do and his prison survival skills get cocked up as he tries to be a good father, which is something he may not be capable of.

You’ve no doubt noticed a complete lack of detail- and that is entirely and completely the fault of the film. To be perfectly honest I had no chance to take any notes because I was too caught up in the film to take any. Seriously I didn’t want to look away to scribble something because I wanted to see what was going to happen next.

This is one of the best films of Tribeca and one of my favorites of the year. Everything in it shines from the performances to the script to the technical end, it all comes together to tell one hell of a story that has one of the more moving final minutes in any film I’ve seen this year.

This film kicks ass and is a must see.