Last week, on June 3rd, over a decade later, I premiered THE FARM: TEN DOWN in Angola Prison.  The setting could not have been further removed from Park City, Utah.  Instead of a big screen in a theater, we were watching on a large size television monitor in the visiting room of the prison. Instead of filmmakers, film fanatics, media, festival directors, there were 400 inmates, guards and administrators.  Then beyond the visiting room the film was being broadcast on Angola’s closed circuit television station so the other 4500 men in the prison could also watch the film and the Q&A that was to follow.

This time I was a lot more nervous.

I was sitting behind Sean Vaughn as he ran the switcher for LSPTv (Louisiana State Penitentiary Television), Angola’s prisoner run TV station. Sean is not the station manager, but he is in the film and he was about to watch it for the first time. He appears with his wife and daughter in a very personal scene and I wondered how he’d respond to seeing his life revealed in such a public way.

The Warden was in the front row. Every time something was shown that might cause the prison concern, I got worried. The Warden had not only permitted us to make this film, but he was courageous enough to allow it to be shown here and to gather the 400 men to see it live.  Yet, if the film played poorly in this audience then perhaps he’d not allowed us the same access going forward.

A few seats down was Bishop Tanniehill.  After 52 years locked up, 50 of them at Angola, the Bishop had flown down that very morning from New York, where he now lives, with our editor and co director, Nancy Novack.  They had literally arrived minutes before the beginning of the film, just enough time to receive the applause that comes with the respect his ex fellow inmates hold for him.

One row behind the Bishop, Ashanti Witherspoon and his wife Susan were watching.  Every time a scene came up with Ashanti his face lit up. Watching him watch the film was very strange. I knew he liked it, but I wondered what it must be like to watch it in the very place that had caused him so much suffering for so long.  And yet, the smile on his face never seemed to disappear.

Elsewhere in the prison George and Vincent were watching. George in his dorm in Camp D.  Vincent in a one man cell in Camp J.  When a tense scene began I sort of wished I were with them away from the crowd.

The audience laughed at the right times.  Cheered the Bishop when he shows us his home in Brooklyn.  They were angry at the parole board scene with Vincent Simmons. It was very intense. But then, like a flash it was over.

The Warden stood up and gave one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard him give. He summarized the film, not as a movie, but as blueprint for how to live a meaningful and hopeful life in Angola prison. Each story came with a lesson.

“Guys, you study how Ashanti presented himself to the Parole Board and do the same.”
“Bishop never lost hope and took full responsibility for his deeds and miracles came his wa.y”
“George Crawford made his momma cry. Never do that. Don’t make your momma suffer any more.”
“Vincent Simmons is in a tough place and none of us can ever know if he is guilty or not, but he does not have to make his life harder here then it already is.”

…and so he helped the men digest the film and make sense of it for their lives as they sat also serving life sentences.  After Bishop, Ashanti and I spoke there were questions from the audience that showed just how much it meant to see two of their own make it out of prison and  lead meaningful lives as free people.

And there was, although it was just one evening, a sense of hope in Angola.  This hope wasn’t  based on faith or religion alone, but on the possibility that despite the terrible odds there can be a chance  to change one’s destiny and find a path to freedom.

Yes, there was so much more at stake in this screening than ten years earlier.  Was it a career changer? I don’t think so, but it was amazing!

–Jonathan Stack

Indeed, over the years countless numbers of people have seen the film and uniformly they ask the same question; Whatever happened to the men in THE FARM. “Did George raise the $3000 for his appeal?”, “Did Ashanti get to take that bath?”, “Did the Governor ever sign Bishop Tanniehill’s pardon?” Finally, we’re finishing the THE FARM: 10 DOWN and we can answer everyone’s questions.  The film is airing on National Geographic, but the challenge is how do we let all the people who saw THE FARM know it’s happening?

And to be honest, we don’t have a giant promotional budget.  We didn’t have enough of  window for a film festival launch at major festival like Sundance or Tribeca.  We don’t have a celebrity backing its release.

The issue is no less important.  In fact, there are over a half million more people incarcerated today then ten years ago.  This despite the lowering of crime.  DNA has become a big part of the legal lexicon, but in fact, only 250 so inmates have been cleared through its use.

Left with the need for careful and conscious reflection greater then ever and less obvious attention for the sequel then the original, we are getting creative. Thank goodness for the internet, which was only in its beginning stages in 1998 and is now an integral part of our lives. It offers opportunities to reach people in ways we had only begun to imagine then.  Now, certainly, the fact that you can reach everyone makes it all the harder to be seen through the clutter and still, getting the right database, the right ‘assets’ and the right message is required if we even stand a prayer.

Tomorrow we are premiering THE FARM: 10 DOWN in Angola Prison. It is an incredible chance to share the excitement of this film release with the prison community who allowed their stories to be told over the years.

This is the beginning…

So here are the “whats” and the “whys.”

Gabriel City has two main “whats.” On one hand we want to be a community created site, think Wikipedia, for all matters concerning criminal justice.  From how to visit a loved one behind bars (google maps for jails and prisons) to what types of organizations exist to support victims of crimes, from links to local, national and international news sources, to advice and ideas about critical issues of our day; the site will be an important and comprehensive resource for the millions upon millions most directly affected by crime.

The other emphasis is for the site to be a storytelling venue. Imagine a kind of YouTube for criminal justice content. There is no doubt that there is a strong link between the experience of incarceration and the artistic expression it inspires.  And yet, while there certainly is an enormous amount of talent and creativity within prisons, this will not just be an art center for inmates.

No, Gabriel City exists to harness the power of storytelling for the greater good of society.  We want to break the endless cycle of crime and incarceration that destroys lives and communities which ultimately only leads to more crime.  By empowering people with a way to tell their story, and an audience to listen to it, we begin to heal the wounds of time and crime. That is why Gabriel City needs to grow.

To be clear, we are neither romantics who believe all criminals are victims of the system, nor do we believe that all inmates are animals unworthy of forgiveness.  And while victims of crime must not be silenced nor their pain ignored, policy issues affecting the criminal justice system can not be guided strictly by their suffering.  Finding the correct balance is not easy and requires dialogue, reflection and lot of hard work and dedication.  That is what we are going to launch….together.

Swede was the most intriguing man in that place. Sarcastic, bitter, but funny and brilliant. I used to bring him New Yorker Magazines which he loved and we’d talk about almost any topic imaginable as though he had been everywhere and thought of everything. No doubt about it, Swede was the smartest person in Angola and a good storyteller.

Over the years, I asked Swede every time I saw him if I could make a film about his story.  He was always resistant, saying that if he did that he ran the risk of losing the ‘nickels’ the prison afforded him, meaning the bits of freedom he had achieved within the system. You see Swede had escaped in 1979 and was free and living successfully in Silicon Valley, California until 1989. Eventually he was picked up and brought back to serve the rest of his life sentence. As a risk threat he was never permitted to travel.

The crazy part of the story is that Swede was picked up for drunkenness while on a cross country road trip, ended up in the drunk tank with another man, got into a fight and the guy died.  He had no record until then.  That was in the 1957, the day I was born.  In the early 1960’s he got into a fight with another inmate in Angola and was sent to death row until 1976.  In 1979, while working for the Governor he escaped out of Baton Rouge, apparently first traveling to Central America and later returning back to California.

It would have been powerful for him to share his story with the world and ironically, the last time we met he actually indicated he’d consider doing it.  Maybe somebody else can still tell his story, but I’ll always feel that I let it get away somehow except inside of me.

I remember Swede telling me the night that Antonio James was executed in 1996 that he wasn’t sad, but a bit envious.  The other inmates working at the Angolite said, ‘Tell him Swede, tell him what you do every night!”.   Gruff as always, he said, “every night before sleep, I kneel down to pray. I ask God, please don’t let me wake up in the morning’.
For him, it was preferable to be dead then to serve forever in Angola. Well, he finally got his wish…

– Jonathan Stack