Sundance Doc shows horrible conditions in disclosed images of the Alabama Prisons

Park City, Utah (AP) – Men incarcerated in the Alabama penitentiary system risked their security to feed shocking images of their horrible living conditions to a pair of documentary filmmakers. The result is “The Alabama Solution”, which was created this week at the Film Festival Sundance at Park City.

The filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman became interested in the Alabama prisons in 2019. Jarecki, the filmmaker behind “Le Jinx” And “Capture the Friedmans” and Kaufman first had access to the restricted land by a visit with a chaplain during a Renaissance meeting held in prison lessons. There, men have moved them away and whispered them shocking stories about the reality of life inside: forced work, drugs, violence, intimidation, reprisals and truths not disclosed behind many deaths of prisoners.

The Associated Press has Written widely on problems in the state prison systemIncluding high rates of violence, a low staff, a conditional drop -down rate and the use of pandemic funds to build a New oversized prison.

This process finally led them to imprisoned activists Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council (also known as “Kinetik Justice”) who had been trying for years to expose horrible conditions and deeply seated corruption through the system. They helped feed dispatches to filmmakers with mobile mobile phones.

“We are deeply concerned about their security, and we have been since the first time we met them,” said Kaufman. “They have been doing this job for decades and as you see in the film, they were rippied very extremely. But there are lawyers who are ready to make well-being checks and to visit them and to respond to all kinds of reprisals that could come. »»

Tuesday during the first program of the film, she made sure that the advice on the phone listens. They put the microphone on the mobile phone so that the advice could speak.

“We thank you for listening, for being interested,” said the council. “On behalf of the Alabama brothers, I thank you all.”

Several family members of their imprisoned subjects were also in the public, including Sandy Ray, Steven Davis’ motherDied in 2019 at the Correctional Center of William E. Donaldson, his face beaten beyond recognition. Prison officials said Davis had been killed in self -defense because he had not made his weapons. The prisoners tell a very different story.

Alelur “Alex” Duran, who spent 12 years in prison in New York, also helped produce the film. Jarecki said they would not have tackled the subject without the expertise of someone who had been incarcerated.

“What you see in this film is happening all over the country,” said Duran.

The history of Alabama is also integrated into the history of Alabama to work in private companies of Burger King in Best WesternA problem that the AP investigated for more than two years. The cheap and reliable workforce has generated more than $ 250 million for the state since 2000 – the money lined with prisoner pay checks, the AP wrote in December. Conditional release numbers have also dropped in recent years.

“We want to show viewers the truth about a system that has been masked in secret,” said Jarecki. “We hope that the film triggers an effort to allow access to journalists and others so that the public can have transparency in the way in which the imprisoned citizens are treated and how our taxes are spent. We hope to inspire the leaders of Alabama to recognize the crisis and revise its penitentiary system and its use of forced work. »»

The film will have a theatrical release before its start on HBO this year, but specific dates and details are still being developed. And although it was at its beginnings, the impact, said Jarecki, has already been seen, especially in a collective appeal.

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