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As time passed, we had the opportunity to visit and share in each other’s love. I received a lot of letters and photos, and I wrote her letters and sent photos when I was able to take some. I used to give her advice on everything and I enjoyed every opportunity to answer any questions she presented to me.  Over the years we developed a very close relationship. She wasn’t only my daughter, she was my friend and we could talk about anything. It made me feel special. During her teenage years she often called me her hero and although I felt pride in the fact that we were so close, I also felt a pain of not being with her and sometimes I was hard on myself for making the decisions that caused me to be confined and not physically in her life. We would talk about all of the things we were going to do when I got out of prison, and lived as if I was going to be released soon. Neither of us knew that it would take many more years before we had the opportunity to spend time together in society.

The sequel to “THE FARM: LIFE INSIDE ANGOLA PRISON”, Academy nominated and Emmy winning documentary, will also be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel, Tuesday, June 16th 8:00 p.m. EST under the title, “A DECADE BEHIND BARS: RETURN TO THE FARM”.

Two former inmates featured in THE FARM will return to Angola for this “red carpet premiere” and participate with inmates in a Q&A with two time Academy nominated filmmaker Jonathan Stack and Warden Burl Cain.

NEW YORK, NY (May, 27, 2009) – In 1997, the documentary THE FARM: LIFE INSIDE ANGOLA PRISON reached an enormous and receptive audience and garnered many of cinema’s top awards, including the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, the LA Film Critic’s Award, the New York Film Critic’s Award, an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary, 2 Emmys and 4 Emmy nominations.

Now, Jonathan Stack and his company, Highest Common Denominator Media Group, bring us a powerful new documentary that reconnects with the surviving characters to witness first hand the impact of THE FARM and the intervening decade on their spirits and their sense of purpose. The film also chronicles profound changes at Angola Prison, once known as “the bloodiest prison in America”, where violence is down 74% and a philosophy of “Corrections” promotes education, rehabilitation and reconciliation to increase public safety.

In a groundbreaking departure from traditional film openings, THE FARM: TEN DOWN will premiere inside Angola Prison on June 3rd, 2009, before the inmates, wardens and correctional officers who have allowed their stories to be the source of documentary films for over a decade. The premier, like the film, exhibits the transformative power of hope, even behind bars. The film will be shown on the prison’s closed circuit television station, LSPTv, for the 5,100 inmates.

Two of the subjects of THE FARM – Ashanti Witherspoon and Bishop Tanniehill – will return to Angola Prison for the premier event. Ashanti was granted parole in 1999 after 27 years behind bars and Bishop was pardoned by Governor Kathleen Blanco in 2007 after nearly 50 years at Angola. Their stories help to inspire other inmates. Ashanti and Bishop will participate in a Q&A with inmates following the film’s premiere They will be joined by Q&A with inmates following the film’s premiere They will be joined by Warden Burl Cain, the warden of Angola Prison for the last decade, and by Jonathan Stack, director of the films.

The footage from the Q&A and the screening will be available online for the public and the film team will twitter live from the event updating the public regularly on the HCD Media Group-run website: www.GabrielCity.com, an online community for those affected by incarceration.

THE FARM: 10 DOWN will have its national broadcast premier on the National Geographic Channel on Tuesday, June 16th at 8pm EST, as A DECADE BEHIND BARS: RETURN TO THE FARM. National Geographic Channel is also hosting free streaming of THE FARM and WILDEST SHOW IN THE SOUTH, Jonathan Stack’s documentary about the Angola Prison Rodeo, online at Natgeotv.com/farm. They are also both available free on HULU.com

For the partners of Highest Common Denominator Media Group – Jonathan Stack, David Deniger, and Mara-Michelle Batlin, – the release of THE FARM: 10 DOWN marks a major milestone in achieving their mission to use the power of story-telling to illustrate the elements of our humanity that unite all of us, the shared values that are our highest common denominator,

HCD Media Group is also launching GabrielCity.com, an online community offering support to those affected by incarceration.
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THE FARM: 10 DOWN is directed for Highest Common Denominator Media Group by Jonathan Stack and produced by James McKay. Executive Producers are David Deniger and Mara-Michelle Batlin. Nancy Novack is the editor and co-director.

For more information please visit: http://www.hcdmediagroup.com

We sat at a table in the lunch room/ visiting room and he drank Root Beer pop, that was his favorite at the time. We talked and talked and talked. He taught me how to spell lots of big words. That has never left my mind. I can still picture that moment.

I knew that my father was in prison, ever since I was about 1 or 2 years old. My grandmother and mother always said that I was a very smart little girl. They were very informative about his situation. He would call me ALL THE TIME.

What it meant for me was that I would not be able to grow up with him in the house, go to the store together, pick me up from school, help me with homework, read to me at night , and meet my first boyfriend, etc., etc. I especially could not call him whenever I wanted to talk to him.

Visiting days were the best! I always got extremely sad when it was time to leave, but the relief of being able to give my father a big hug was always comforting on the ride home.

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Bwashena Witherspoon is the daughter of Ashanti Witherspoon who is featured in the documentaries THE FARM and THE FARM: 10 DOWN. Bwashena has spent time touring with her father and speaking about being the child of a former prisoner.

1. There was the period when I woke up in the hospital and realized that I had been shot in the head.
2. There was the day when I was moved from the hospital to the Caddo Parish Prison, and on to the Caddo Correctional Center.
3. There was the day when I was transferred back to the Caddo Parish Prison (when the new prison was built).
4. There was the day when I was transferred back to the Caddo Correctional Center. 5) There was the day when I first arrived in Angola.

As you can see my first day had different meanings at different points of my “first day,” but for now let’s look at my first day in Angola.

Traveling to Angola was an emotionally moving experience. I was nervous, tense and prepared to kill or die. The horror stories of Angola seemed to find a permanent place in my thoughts and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. I was relieved when I got off of the bus, stepped through the doors of the Reception Center and recognized the face of someone from the city Shreveport. He worked in the area and was assisting the security guards with checking in the new arrivals. He nodded to me, and when we were out of ear shot of the others he told me that he had a knife for me and would get it to me by the time I reached the dorm.

We went through the general procedures of being finger printed, etc., and we received the general heckles from some of the convicts who were already living in the area, but it wasn’t until we were standing in the hall outside of the dorms we were to be assigned to that reality hit me.

There was a former shotgun guard (an inmate guard who used to guard other inmates with a firearm) and a ranking officer (he was either a lieutenant or captain). The captain was telling us the general do’s and don’ts, e.g., how to contact someone from the classification department, what days and time was commissar, how to get to the hospital, what time the mail arrived (mail call) etc. At the end of his talk he said something that caused me to realize that all of the stories about Angola were true. He said “I want all of you to get yourself a knife and if someone messes with you you are going to have to kill them and kill them quick. Don’t play around. Kill them quick, because there aren’t enough guards around the protect you, and that’s the only way you are going to get your respect.”  When I heard that I was very anxious to get the knife that I was promised, and when I didn’t have the knife on me by the time I entered the dorm I found myself feeling somewhat paranoid. I wondered if the guy who told me that a knife would be waiting for me was telling the truth. I was in “attack mode,” ready to strike out at anyone who didn’t look right.  My paranoia died and I felt a sigh of relief when, as soon as the security officer left the dorm, someone called me to the door and handed me a dictionary through the open window in the door. I stepped into the rest room, opened the pages and there was a heavy duty shank cut into the pages. I felt a lot better and when I stepped back into the dorm I realized that there weren’t any beds and a lot of people were sleeping on the floor. I found me a spot and was set on being content with my little spot until one of the guys from Shreveport came into the dorm and saw me. He rallied some of the other convicts around me and making me the center of attention because I had been in a shootout. As the days went on I seemed to gain a little respect from a few of the others in the dorm because of my charge, but I actually didn’t trust anyone.

The first day was very tense and it got worse as the evening came and the field workers returned to the dorm. The dorm became loud, noisy and it seemed like many of the people were looking for a fight, or someone to gain a reputation off of. RC/AU (Reception Center – Admitting Unit) was a very violent place because it was the place where a lot of convicts felt they had to create a name for themselves so that their reputation would proceed them throughout the prison. It was a place where men were raped, became a slave and sold to someone else in another section of the prison.

There were a couple of fights between others, but it wasn’t until after the lights went out that I became very paranoid. A couple of the guys from Shreveport jumped on another convict and took his bed. Then I was told that I could have the bed because I was their “home boy.” I didn’t take it. I thought it might be a set-up. I was satisfied with my spot on the  floor, against the wall. Fighting from the floor with my back to the wall seemed much safer than sleeping on a top bunk. Like many other’s I didn’t go to sleep that night and a few days later I got my own bed (against the wall).

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Ashanti Witherspoon spent 27 years in Angola Prison. In 1999 he was granted parole. Since leaving prison Ashanti has become a motivational speaker and is devoted to mentoring at-risk youth. He was featured in Jonathan Stack’s film THE FARM and THE FARM: 10 DOWN, which will be released June 16th, 2009 on National Geographic Channel.

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

Jazz great Curtis Lundy composed and arranged this amazing piece of music for Highest Common Denominator Media Group’s new documentary THE FARM: 10 Down premiering June 16th at 8PM eastern time on The National Geographic Channel.

Bishop Stroll Theme

Jonathan Stack’s 1998 Academy Award® nominated feature length documentary is now online via The National Geographic Channel. Check it out!