“Surviving Criminalization: Films on Incarceration & Family Detention”

Wednesday, October 14: Another great night of conversation and building connections!

 We extend thanks to our colleagues at the Equal Justice Society for inviting us to co-present our work along with the west-coast premier of “The Least of These,” a provocative documentary that addresses the use of family detention as part of the current U.S. immigration. 

More than 120 tickets were sold for this screening, and over 100 of these folks stuck around for the question-and-answer session that followed.

Speaking on behalf of “The Trust” were Producer/Director Tamara Perkins, Film Advisor Arnold Perkins, and Rhody McCoy, Program Associate for The National Trust for the Development of African American Men.

The clip we showed was an enhanced version of the previous week’s presentation at Saint Mary’s, which focused mostly on the men inside. This updated segment reflects the on-going efforts of Tamara and Editor Diana J. Brodie, who have been hard at work interweaving input from incarceration experts and family members. As we watched from the comfort of the cushy seats at the Sundance Kabuki Theatre, the film itself looked fabulous and lush in all it’s glory up there on the big screen!

There were two recurring themes that arose in the post-screening Q & A conversation:

(1) the importance of illuminating our cultural reliance on incarceration as a solution to “problems” such as asylum seekers and drug addiction. A deeper look at the situation reveals a powerful profit motive for maintaining prisons along with extreme racial disparities regarding incarceration rates. (In the words of one audience member: “immigrants are being held because they are leaving deplorable conditions, and black and brown people are being held because they can’t leave deplorable conditions.”)

(2) a shared understanding of our inter-connectedness with those behind bars. Panelist Clark Lyda, Co-Producer of “The Least of These,” clarified that his priority for the film was to connect viewers with a stronger sense of the immigration detainees as fellow humans who are attempting to find safety and security for their families, while Tamara echoed this theme when she declared that “rehabilitating” how our society views prisoners as “others” is foremost in her mind as she moves forward in completing “The Trust.”

Again, many thanks to the co-sponsors of the event: the Equal Justice Society, in partnership with the ACLU of Northern California, the San Francisco Film Society, and the Commonweal Institute.

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Watch for upcoming blog posts as we continue to build connections with community partners: bringing you additional news from fellow activists working to put a human face on the issue of incarceration.