Latest news with #CapturingtheFriedmans
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Yahoo
With leaked footage from the inside, Sundance doc shows horrifying conditions in Alabama prisons
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is 'The Alabama Solution,' which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman became interested in Alabama prisons in 2019. Jarecki, the filmmaker behind 'The Jinx' and 'Capturing the Friedmans,' and Kaufman first gained access to the restricted grounds through a visit with a chaplain during a revival meeting held in the prison yards. There men pulled them aside and whispered shocking stories about the reality of life inside: forced labor, drugs, violence, intimidation, retaliation and the undisclosed truths behind many prisoner deaths. This process eventually led them to incarcerated activists Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council (also known as 'Kinetik Justice') who had for years been trying to expose the horrifying conditions and deep- seated corruption across the system. They helped feed dispatches to the filmmakers with contraband cellphones. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. 'We're deeply concerned for their safety, and we have been since the first time we met them,' said Kaufman. 'They've been doing this work for decades and as you see in the film, they've been retaliated against in very extreme ways. But there are lawyers who are ready to do wellness checks and visit them and respond to any sort of retaliation that may come.' On Tuesday at the first showing of the film, she had Council on the phone listening in. They put the microphone up to the cellphone so that Council could speak. 'We thank you all for listening, for being interested,' Council said. 'On behalf of the brothers of Alabama, I thank you all.' Several family members of their incarcerated subjects were also in the audience, including Sandy Ray, the mother of Steven Davis, who died in 2019 at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, his face beaten beyond recognition. Prison officials said Davis was killed in self-defense because he didn't put down his weapons. The prisoners tell a vastly different story. Alelur 'Alex' Duran, who spent 12 years in prison in New York, also helped produce the film. Jarecki said they wouldn't have taken on the subject without the expertise of someone who had been incarcerated. 'What you're seeing in this film is going on all over the nation,' Duran said. Also embedded in the story is Alabama's long history of contracting prisoners to do work at private companies from Burger King to Best Western, an issue that The Associated Press investigated for over two years. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 — money garnished from prisoners' paychecks, the AP wrote in December. Parole numbers have also plummeted in recent years. 'We want to show viewers the truth about a system that has been cloaked in secrecy,' Jarecki said. 'We hope the film sparks an effort to allow access for journalists and others so the public can have transparency into how incarcerated citizens are treated and how our tax dollars are being spent. We hope to inspire Alabama's leadership to acknowledge the crisis and to overhaul its prison system and its use of forced labor.' The film will have a theatrical release before it debuts on HBO sometime this year, but the specific dates and details are still being worked out. And while it is in its early days, the impact, Jarecki said, has already been seen, including in a class action labor lawsuit. ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, visit:
Washington Post
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
With leaked footage from the inside, Sundance doc shows horrifying conditions in Alabama prisons
PARK CITY, Utah — Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is 'The Alabama Solution,' which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman became interested in Alabama prisons in 2019. Jarecki, the filmmaker behind 'The Jinx' and 'Capturing the Friedmans,' and Kaufman first gained access to the restricted grounds through a visit with a chaplain during a revival meeting held in the prison yards. There men pulled them aside and whispered shocking stories about the reality of life inside: forced labor, drugs, violence, intimidation, retaliation and the undisclosed truths behind many prisoner deaths.
The Independent
29-01-2025
- The Independent
With leaked footage from the inside, Sundance doc shows horrifying conditions in Alabama prisons
Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is 'The Alabama Solution,' which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman became interested in Alabama prisons in 2019. Jarecki, the filmmaker behind 'The Jinx' and 'Capturing the Friedmans,' and Kaufman first gained access to the restricted grounds through a visit with a chaplain during a revival meeting held in the prison yards. There men pulled them aside and whispered shocking stories about the reality of life inside: forced labor, drugs, violence, intimidation, retaliation and the undisclosed truths behind many prisoner deaths. This process eventually led them to incarcerated activists Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council (also known as 'Kinetik Justice') who had for years been trying to expose the horrifying conditions and deep- seated corruption across the system. They helped feed dispatches to the filmmakers with contraband cellphones. 'We're deeply concerned for their safety, and we have been since the first time we met them,' said Kaufman. 'They've been doing this work for decades and as you see in the film, they've been retaliated against in very extreme ways. But there are lawyers who are ready to do wellness checks and visit them and respond to any sort of retaliation that may come.' On Tuesday at the first showing of the film, she had Council on the phone listening in. They put the microphone up to the cellphone so that Council could speak. 'We thank you all for listening, for being interested,' Council said. 'On behalf of the brothers of Alabama, I thank you all.' Several family members of their incarcerated subjects were also in the audience, including Sandy Ray, the mother of Steven Davis, who died in 2019 at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, his face beaten beyond recognition. Prison officials said Davis was killed in self-defense because he didn't put down his weapons. The prisoners tell a vastly different story. Alelur 'Alex' Duran, who spent 12 years in prison in New York, also helped produce the film. Jarecki said they wouldn't have taken on the subject without the expertise of someone who had been incarcerated. 'What you're seeing in this film is going on all over the nation,' Duran said. Also embedded in the story is Alabama's long history of contracting prisoners to do work at private companies from Burger King to Best Western, an issue that The Associated Press investigated for over two years. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 — money garnished from prisoners' paychecks, the AP wrote in December. Parole numbers have also plummeted in recent years. 'We want to show viewers the truth about a system that has been cloaked in secrecy,' Jarecki said. 'We hope the film sparks an effort to allow access for journalists and others so the public can have transparency into how incarcerated citizens are treated and how our tax dollars are being spent. We hope to inspire Alabama's leadership to acknowledge the crisis and to overhaul its prison system and its use of forced labor.' The film will have a theatrical release before it debuts on HBO sometime this year, but the specific dates and details are still being worked out. And while it is in its early days, the impact, Jarecki said, has already been seen, including in a class action labor lawsuit. ___ For more coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, visit:
Associated Press
29-01-2025
- Associated Press
With leaked footage from the inside, Sundance doc shows horrifying conditions in Alabama prisons
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Incarcerated men in the Alabama prison system risked their safety to feed shocking footage of their horrifying living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is 'The Alabama Solution,' which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman became interested in Alabama prisons in 2019. Jarecki, the filmmaker behind 'The Jinx' and 'Capturing the Friedmans,' and Kaufman first gained access to the restricted grounds through a visit with a chaplain during a revival meeting held in the prison yards. There men pulled them aside and whispered shocking stories about the reality of life inside: forced labor, drugs, violence, intimidation, retaliation and the undisclosed truths behind many prisoner deaths. This process eventually led them to incarcerated activists Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council (also known as 'Kinetik Justice') who had for years been trying to expose the horrifying conditions and deep- seated corruption across the system. They helped feed dispatches to the filmmakers with contraband cellphones. 'We're deeply concerned for their safety, and we have been since the first time we met them,' said Kaufman. 'They've been doing this work for decades and as you see in the film, they've been retaliated against in very extreme ways. But there are lawyers who are ready to do wellness checks and visit them and respond to any sort of retaliation that may come.' On Tuesday at the first showing of the film, she had Council on the phone listening in. They put the microphone up to the cellphone so that Council could speak. 'We thank you all for listening, for being interested,' Council said. 'On behalf of the brothers of Alabama, I thank you all.' Several family members of their incarcerated subjects were also in the audience, including Sandy Ray, the mother of Steven Davis, who died in 2019 at William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, his face beaten beyond recognition. Prison officials said Davis was killed in self-defense because he didn't put down his weapons. The prisoners tell a vastly different story. Alelur 'Alex' Duran, who spent 12 years in prison in New York, also helped produce the film. Jarecki said they wouldn't have taken on the subject without the expertise of someone who had been incarcerated. 'What you're seeing in this film is going on all over the nation,' Duran said. Also embedded in the story is Alabama's long history of contracting prisoners to do work at private companies from Burger King to Best Western, an issue that The Associated Press investigated for over two years. The cheap, reliable labor force has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000 — money garnished from prisoners' paychecks, the AP wrote in December. Parole numbers have also plummeted in recent years. 'We want to show viewers the truth about a system that has been cloaked in secrecy,' Jarecki said. 'We hope the film sparks an effort to allow access for journalists and others so the public can have transparency into how incarcerated citizens are treated and how our tax dollars are being spent. We hope to inspire Alabama's leadership to acknowledge the crisis and to overhaul its prison system and its use of forced labor.' The film will have a theatrical release before it debuts on HBO sometime this year, but the specific dates and details are still being worked out. And while it is in its early days, the impact, Jarecki said, has already been seen, including in a class action labor lawsuit.
Los Angeles Times
28-01-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
With shocking secret footage, prison doc ‘The Alabama Solution' should outrage the nation
PARK CITY, Utah — I've been recommending 'The Alabama Solution' to everyone I meet since I landed at the Sundance Film Festival last week — but only under my breath. That's because Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman's bombshell investigation of the Alabama prison system, which premiered here Tuesday, was screened in advance for press under strict embargo. Understandable, once you realize that the film's key sources are inmates themselves. Much of 'The Alabama Solution,' which reports on inhumane living conditions, forced labor and widespread violence against the state's incarcerated population, is comprised largely of footage captured by inmates using contraband cellphones, offering one of the most shocking, visceral depictions of our carceral state ever put to film. The result, in which brave inmate activists Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council leak vital information, and the filmmakers chase down leads with shoe-leather doggedness, should outrage the nation. And encourage us to reexamine our own backyards: As co-producer Alex Duran reminded me, California voters recently rejected a ballot measure that would have banned forced prison labor, and incarcerated firefighters were instrumental to the battle against the recent L.A. wildfires. Jarecki and Kaufman sat down with me at the L.A. Times Studios at Sundance to discuss the risks their sources face with the film's release, what they'd like to ask Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and more. The following has been edited and condensed. Before we talk about the genesis of the film, I wanted to start with your interest in the subject matter of the film: mass incarceration, the criminal justice system, prison conditions. What was your level of interest in that topic before 'The Alabama Solution'? Andrew Jarecki: I remember going to see Jesse Friedman at Dannemora Correctional Facility when I was making 'Capturing the Friedmans,' and the experience of going into a maximum-security facility in upstate New York was such a surprise to me — just the level of lockdown, the level of closure to the outside world and certainly to journalists. So it always intrigued me. And then I'd made films about various aspects of the justice system. So when I went down to Alabama in 2019, just to sort of go to Montgomery and see what I would see, I met this prison chaplain and I realized that they went into the prisons and did barbecues and revival meetings. I thought. 'Maybe there's an opportunity to go there and learn something.' And I don't think I thought about it as a film up front. I just was curious. But then when it became clear that there was a possibility for us to film, Charlotte and I got together and and went down there and we had this really extraordinary chance to go into a place that is normally absolutely closed to the media and to the public. Charlotte, I wonder if you could talk about the story of that day at the barbecue. I'm curious, did you have a kind of vision of what you thought you were doing before you arrived that day? Obviously, once the prisoners start coming up to you and and saying, 'There's a story here that they're not showing you,' that changed it, but did you have a different vision going in? Charlotte Kaufman: I think we went in with open minds. You rarely get the opportunity to go into a prison facility in Alabama, and I think we saw this as a great opportunity to be able to speak with some of the men, to just observe what we could around the facility, to learn what we could. But very quickly it became clear that there were only certain conversations that we were allowed to have and that we weren't allowed to speak to the men alone. And I think that lack of access sort of compelled us to keep investigating. After the first scene in the film, there's a title card that explains that after your visit, you started getting outreach from inmates within the prison on contraband cellphones. And the footage from those calls that they're sending you is at the core of the film, and it's part of what makes it so shocking and outrageous. Take me back to the first outreach that you got. What was your reaction? Jarecki: I mean, we were surprised when we went in there at the proliferation of cellphones. The fact that Alabama's prisons are so extraordinarily understaffed and under-resourced means that the prisons are often operating with [a] skeleton crew of people. So you could have a 1,400-bed facility and that normally would be staffed with a few hundred officers. And maybe on a weekend there are 20 officers there. So that indicates that there's a very low level of understanding even by correctional officers. There are large areas of the prison that they don't spend any time in. So the ability to speak to these men on these cellphones, which are, in my view, largely brought in by the officers — there's a big trade in cellphones — that was just a surprise to us. As much as I think it has been people seeing the film and saying, how is that even possible that they have these phones? One of the things that watching it like really disturbed, upset me were just what they would show you about what the living conditions were like. Flooded floors, overflowing toilets, rats everywhere. Were you that shocked? Was that your response when you started seeing those images coming from your sources on the inside? Kaufman: The Department of Justice had put out a very in-depth report about their own investigation into Alabama's prison system. But it's a very different experience reading the facts and reading the findings, versus actually seeing it. There is something that makes you really understand what it's like to live in that environment when you can actually see it. And I think that's why prisons are so secret. That's why we're not allowed to see in. And we can only read papers about what's actually happening. Because when you do see it, it becomes a lot less tolerable.0Over the course of this six-year process, you formed relationships with your main sources inside the facilities. Now, with the film coming out — and as the film explores — they are at risk of reprisal from correctional officers and higher up. What were your ethical concerns about revealing their specific identities, and what were your conversations like with them about the risks and their ultimate willingness to undertake those risks? Jarecki: We thought a lot about that issue, because obviously the more you get to know people that are in that situation, the more you recognize their vulnerability and the more you feel connected to them. There's no avoiding that. And it was kind of a beautiful thing about the film that you get to see the humanity in these people who are often seen by society through a very different lens. So we always thought about it and spoke extensively to them about it. These are men who had been working on their own for many years to get the word out on the crisis in this prison system. So when we first started talking, they were very clear — we were part of their agenda, in a way. It was very important for them to do this work. And so we were kind of there to ride along. So it was a symbiotic process. They're very well known to the authorities inside and they have been retaliated against in the past. So we're concerned. We continue to be concerned about it. And there's been an organization that's created a defense committee to help them if that does come to pass. I wanted to talk a little bit about your qualitative experiences as filmmakers with this unique process where your sources are separated from you by the divide of the prison walls, but you're talking to them regularly. This struck me during the narrative about the prison strike and then the breaking of the strike: You're both at one level getting more information than the general public is getting through the news media, but you're also not close enough to it to really feel like there's any kind of control that you can exert. What is that like for you emotionally or creatively as filmmakers? Kaufman: It's a very intense experience to follow along and watch this incredibly inspiring and moving movement of the strike but then also watch how the state responds. It's a privilege to be able to have these extended conversations with all of our participants. But at the same time, that's why the film is so urgent, because they're at risk and they're doing their activism regardless of this film. And that's also what puts them at risk. They've been retaliated against for their activism for like two decades now. Jarecki: These are men who have been the victims of violence in the system and often violence by people who are allegedly supposed to look out for their safety. And so the ability to have that kind of up-close contact with them and recognize the bravery that they're showing in being able to share this, it's such a high level of trust that had to be established for them to allow us to sort of ride along and see this incredibly unique kind of protest. But it's really important to recognize, despite the violence that they have been subjected to, all of their work is nonviolent. They're extremely thoughtful about the importance of nonviolent action. And the fact that the state, which has all the machinery of government and all kinds of special military equipment, can't find a way to respond to them except through violence is really an example of how the system is pretty topsy-turvy. The title of the film comes from an oft-used phrase by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who is an interviewed in the film. If you got the chance to get her on the record on camera, what would you ask her? Jarecki: The first question I would ask her is whether she visits the prisons. And I'm quite sure that she would say, 'Well, on one occasion...,' something like that. We probably would both be eager to have that conversation. But my first question would be to try to really understand how insulated she must be from what's happening to her own citizens of her own state, for her to just keep proposing solutions that are not solutions. Kaufman: I would ask her to give us access. We were able to make this film because we had some really brave individuals who took great risks to have conversations with us, to share material with us. But I would ask her, 'What would it take for you to actually allow transparency and for the media to be able to come in and talk to the men freely and to bring cameras in freely?' Jarecki: There's a fact that we've sort of been talking about how to convey. It's sort of an extraordinary statistic that I'm pretty sure that governor doesn't know. Of many statistics I think the governor's not familiar with. But when you learn about the work programs, essentially forced labor that happens inside the system, of the 20,000 men who are in that system, many of them are caused to work inside the prisons, outside the prisons, on road crews around the state and even at McDonald's and many other companies. The state is putting them to work and the corrections department is gathering the money for that work and the men are getting a tiny sliver of that. What's extraordinary is that the people who are allowed to work and who are considered safe enough to be in the community interacting — you see some of them in the film walking around the state fair, walking around the governor's mansion — those people are less likely, statistically, to be paroled than the people who are at the next highest level of concern for safety. People who are considered safer are less likely to be let out, arguably because they are more valuable as people who can be put to work. ... I don't think anybody's doing that math because I don't think it's of great concern to them, partly because they too are isolated from being able to see what's happening in their own system.
