FREE! presents:

Made in America: The Story of the Bloods and the Crips
Directed by Stacy Peralta, 2008, 93 mins.
It's a civil war that's lasted 40 years. Passed down from son to son. Fought eye for an eye. Over 15,000 dead and counting, while the world stands by. Welcome to South Central Los Angeles. But what's at the root of this long-standing battle? Filmmaker Stacy Peralta hits the streets of LA to find out, and speaks with former and current members of the Bloods and the Crips, two of the most notorious and violent street gangs in America. Narrated by Forrest Whitaker.

Speakers:

Tiffany Wright became involved in gang activity as a young girl. Now 26, she has founded Youth Empowered Together and mentors 12-18 year olds in taking charge of their lives.

Jaime Rivera, former spokesperson of the Netas, was part of redirecting the Netas toward community organizing and activism, helping to unite them across the U.S., Italy and Spain.

FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment, a grassroots community organizing collective of people with incarcerated loved ones.

FREE! presents:

Made in America: The Story of the Bloods and the Crips
Directed by Stacy Peralta, 2008, 93 mins.

FREE! presents:

Made in America: The Story of the Bloods and the Crips
Directed by Stacy Peralta, 2008, 93 mins.

FAMILIES RALLY FOR EMANCIPATION AND EMPOWERMENT (F.R.E.E.) SCREENING

Life Sentence
Dir. Lisa Gray, 2008, 30 min.
A personal look at the impact of long-term imprisonment and the adjustment back into society. While providing positive opportunities for other formerly incarcerated people, these six successful men and women must deal with the reality of lifetime parole. The film dispassionately explores the criminal justice system, as well as the hope, ambition, and obstacles ex-prisoners must overcome to prove change is possible.

Teach Our Children
Dir. Christine Choy & Susan Robeson

Third World Newsreel
1972, 35 min.
This film focuses on the historic 1971 Attica prison rebellion in upstate New York. It targets the conditions that caused prisoners to take drastic steps ds their basic rights. The film questions the reactions of prison warden Oswald, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and President Nixon, as well as the death of 31 inmates and prison guards from bullets fired by the National Guard. Through on-site footage taken during and following the rebellion, and follow-up interviews with inmates, this film relates a powerful message concerning prisoner's rights and provides an important historical document.

FREE! PRESENTS:

The Visitors
Melis Birder, 2007, 64 Min.
The Visitors is a documentary about people from New York City with family and loved ones in the prison, who regardless of weather, health or other conditions, climb aboard buses every weekend for a visit.

Reflecting the struggles of a unique culture living at the intersection of confinement and the free world, the story follows the coordinator of the bus-Denise-whose husband is coming home soon after 17 years of imprisonment.

FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment, a grassroots community organizing collective of people with incarcerated loved ones.

FREE! PRESENTS:

The Visitors
Melis Birder, 2007, 64 Min.
The Visitors is a documentary about people from New York City with family and loved ones in the prison, who regardless of weather, health or other conditions, climb aboard buses every weekend for a visit.

Reflecting the struggles of a unique culture living at the intersection of confinement and the free world, the story follows the coordinator of the bus-Denise-whose husband is coming home soon after 17 years of imprisonment.

FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment, a grassroots community organizing collective of people with incarcerated loved ones.

FREE! presents:

The Visitors
Dir. Melis Birder, 2007, 64 Min.
The Visitors is a documentary about people from New York City with family and loved ones in the prison, who regardless of weather, health or other conditions, climb aboard buses every weekend for a visit.

Reflecting the struggles of a unique culture living at the intersection of confinement and the free world, the story follows the coordinator of the bus-Denise-whose husband is coming home soon after 17 years of imprisonment.

FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment, a grassroots community organizing collective of people with incarcerated loved ones.

F.R.E.E. FILM FORUM
More info about FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment>

Up the Ridge
Dir. Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby, 2008, 60 min.
Up the Ridge is a one-hour television documentary produced by Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby. In 1999 Szuberla and Kirby were volunteer DJ's for the Appalachian region's only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region's newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and inmates. Filming began that year and, though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.

Panel discussion with Kathie Cheng from October 22nd Coalition, Lee Sinovoi from FREE!, as well as speakers from Families for Freedom, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), & the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.

F.R.E.E. FILM FORUM
More info about FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment>

In Prison My Whole Life
Dir. Mark Evans, 2008, 90 min.
In Prison My Whole Life is about a man: a father, a son, an inspiration and a pariah - who currently faces his twenty-fifth year on Death Row. His name is Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black Panther and radical journalist who was arrested for the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia in 1981. He claimed he was innocent but was sentenced to death and has been awaiting execution ever since.

Panel discussion to follow. Speakers TBA.

F.R.E.E. FILM FORUM
More info about FREE! Families Rally for Emancipation and Empowerment>

Getting Out
Dir. David Bagnall and George C. Stoney, 2005, 58 min.
A documentary film by David Bagnall and George Stoney featuring current inmates from New York's Sing Sing Correctional Facility as well as former inmates attempting to reestablish their lives after years of incarceration. Inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts theater workshop program at Sing Sing, the film examines the importance of creativity and artistic expression both inside and outside the prison walls.

"There are two and a quarter million people behind bars in the U.S. About 600,000 are due for release in the next 12 months, most of them with no preparation for what awaits them on the outside. It isn't surprising that more than half will be behind bars again within another year — back to the only security they know."