A film by Brett Story about the prison and its life in the American landscape.
More people are imprisoned in the United States at this moment than in any other time or place in history, yet the prison itself has never felt further away or more out of sight. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is a film about the prison in which we never see a penitentiary. Instead, the film unfolds as a cinematic journey through a series of landscapes across the USA where prisons do work and affect lives, from a California mountainside where female prisoners fight raging wildfires, to a Bronx warehouse full of goods destined for the state correctional system, to an Appalachian coal town betting its future on the promise of prison jobs.
A meditation on the prison’s disappearance in the era of mass incarceration, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes unfolds as a journey through a series of ordinary places across the USA where prisons do work and affect lives: from a California mountainside where female prisoners fight the region’s raging wildfires, to a congregation of chess players in Manhattan who did their time becoming masters of the game, to an Appalachian coal town betting its future on the promise of prison jobs.
- True/False Film Fest 2016, World Premiere
- Hot Docs 2016, Special Jury Prize for Canadian Feature
- DOXA 2016, Colin Low Award for Best Documentary Film + EDA Prize for Best Female Directed Film
- Camden International Film Festival 2016, Special Jury Mention
“Unexpectedly moving… an unsettling mural of systemic damage.” NYTimes CRITICS’ PICK New York Times
“The film we need in the present moment of the carceral state.” Judah Schept, Antipode
[The University of Birmingham purchased an institutional copy of this documentary film, enabling it to be screened at this conference, with no admission charged.]