Guantanamo Circus

A surreal look at the day-to-day life of American soldiers stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba through the eyes of a traveling circus troupe cleared to perform there.

The Feminist on Cellblock Y

A convicted felon builds a feminist movement from behind bars at an all-male prison in Soledad, California.

The Big One

The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.

Waiting for Godot in San Quentin

Documentary about the staging of 'Waiting for Godot' in prison.

Solitary

There are 100,000 US citizens in solitary confinement across the country, a staggering number prompting comment from both President Obama and the Pope. Situated in rural Virginia, 300 miles from any urban center, Red Onion State Prison is one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US built to hold prisoners in eight-by-ten-foot cells for 23 hours a day. Filmed over the course of one year, this eye-opening film braids stark prison imagery, stories from correction officers, and intimate reflections from the men who are locked up in isolation. The inmates share the paths that led them to prison and their daily struggles to maintain their sanity.

O Retorno da Terra Tupinambá

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

A portrait of the life and career of the infamous American execution device designer Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. Mr. Leuchter was an engineer who became an expert on execution devices and was later hired by holocaust revisionist historian Ernst Zundel to "prove" that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Leuchter published a controversial report confirming Zundel's position, which ultimately ruined his own career. Most of the footage is of Leuchter, working in and around execution facilities or chipping away at the walls of Auschwitz, but Morris also interviews various historians, associates, and neighbors.

The Condemned

With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)

The American Matrix - Age Of Deception

A shocking new 2 hour film by B.A. Brooks. This 2010 release is a follow up to "The Decline And Fall Of America" which was released in 2008. "The American Matrix - Age Of Deception" details news items that all people should be aware of such as the economic collapse of The United States and the formation of the a New World Order. See what has really been going on in America today.

Florence, Arizona

Welcome to Florence, Arizona: a cowboy town with a prison problem. Just 8,500 residents call the tiny community home—but over 17,000 inmates live there, housed in nine jails spread out over a sprawling industrial prison complex. The economic fate of the town’s inhabitants is inextricably linked with the prisons—and the townspeople are not necessarily happy about it. Director Andrea B. Scott follows four colorful characters whose lives are tied up with the prisons, including the town’s aspiring mayor, a retired correctional officer and speed shooter, a barber who longs for the town’s free-spirited cowboy days, and troubled teen Marcus, whose parents met through their prison careers. “Florence, Arizona” is a richly drawn, humorous look at a singular small town whose Wild West roots are still very much alive in its outlaw identity today. -TCFF database

Jacinta

An intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma, Jacinta follows a young woman in and out of prison as she attempts to break free from an inherited cycle of addiction, incarceration, and crime.

Nemesis

The film explores the destruction of a unique train station in Zurich and the construction of the new prison and police centre in its place. From the perspective of the filmmaker’s window, and with testimony from prisoners awaiting deportation, the film probes how we deal with the extinction of history and its replacement with total security.

13th

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.

Dramatic Escape

Dramatic Escape follows inmates at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Upstate New York, as they attempt to mount a behind bars production of A FEW GOOD MEN. Tracing the inmates' steps from auditions through their curtain call, we are witness to their journey - both as individuals and as a players ensemble. All of the obstacles involved with putting on a stage production on the outside become all the more difficult behind bars. Hear the inmates' stories and candid retelling of the crimes that landed them in prison. Witness their everyday struggle with what they have done and listen as they contemplate whether redemption is ever achievable either to themselves or to the outside world.

The Road to Mass Incarceration

This video, The Road to Mass Incarceration, by Greenhouse Media summarizes criminal justice policy decisions dating back to the 1960s. Although the effects often took decades to manifest, each of these policy shifts increased the rate of incarceration in the U.S. The video ends with many of the architects of these changes, Democrats and Republicans alike, admitting the failure of these policies and suggesting that it is time for real change.

Attica

Follows the largest prison uprising in US history, conducting dozens of new interviews with inmates, journalists, and other witnesses.

Indictment: The Crimes of Shelly Chartier

Sensationalized in the media as a high profile catfishing case involving an NBA superstar and an aspiring model, Shelly Chartier was portrayed as a master manipulator who used social media as her weapon. Through the sensitive and intelligent lens of Indigenous directors Lisa Jackson and Shane Belcourt, the sensationalism is swept aside to reveal something much more compelling and complex - the story of a young woman caught in historical circumstances beyond her control and how she struggles to rebuild her life after incarceration.

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis is a documentary-style film giving the true account Bill Troester and the transformation he experienced by Jesus out of a life of violence, crime and drug addiction.

Chodorkowskis neue Freiheit

Released from prison, former oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky expounds on his newfound freedom and complex relationship with Vladimir Putin.