Prison film fest brings Hollywood and healing to US jailhouse

SAN QUENTIN (AFP): Held inside a notorious prison among some of California’s most dangerous felons, the San Quentin Film Festival is not your typical Hollywood affair.

Red-carpet interviews take place just yards (meters) away from a now dormant execution chamber where hundreds of death-row inmates met grisly ends.

Convicted murderers sit alongside famous actors and journalists, applauding films made by their fellow inmates.

Among them is Ryan Pagan, serving 77 years for first-degree murder.

“I always wanted to be an actor – but unfortunately that’s not the life I ended up living,” explains Pagan, prison tattoos peeking out from the short sleeves of his jailhouse-issue blue shirt.

His film “The Maple Leaf,” made behind bars, is competing for best narrative short film – a category only for currently or formerly incarcerated filmmakers.

Pagan, 37, was a teen when he committed his crime, and hopes his new skills directing movies could one day offer “a pipeline to Hollywood, to employment.”

Though it did not win, the movie – about a self-help group in which prisoners tackle guilt and shame – won high praise from a jury including director Celine Song (“Past Lives”) and actor Jesse Williams (“Grey’s Anatomy.”).

“Right now, I’m just doing the work and rehabilitating myself. Part of the story of ‘The Maple Leaf’ is about guys like me,” he says.

‘Healing’

The oldest prison in California, San Quentin was for decades a maximum-security facility that hosted the nation’s biggest death row – and a famous concert by Johnny Cash in 1969.

It has become a flagship for California penal reform, and no longer carries out executions.

Rehabilitation programs include a media center where prisoners produce a newspaper, podcasts and films. The projects are intended to provide employable skills, as 90 percent of inmates will one day be released.

The festival, launched last year, offers inmates a chance to meet mainstream filmmakers from the outside.

Founder Cori Thomas, a playwright and screenwriter, had volunteered at the prison for years, and wanted a way to show her Hollywood peers the “exceptional work” being made in San Quentin.

“The only way would be for them to come in here to see it,” she realized.

After two successful editions, the festival will expand to a women’s prison in 2026.

‘Warning Signs’

San Quentin’s film program is also a chance for inmates to confront their often brutal pasts.

Miguel Sifuentes, 27 years into a life sentence for an armed robbery in which his accomplice killed a police officer, says creating short film “Warning Signs” was “a transformative healing experience.”

“It really wasn’t like acting – it was just speaking from a real place of pain,” Sifuentes said.

Prison warden Chance Andes told AFP that cathartic activities like filmmaking and events like the festival help “reduce the violence and the tension within the walls.”

Inmates who cause fights or otherwise break prison rules temporarily lose their chance to participate.

Andes says these lessons resonate after the prisoners are released.

“If we send people out without having resolved their trauma and having no skill set, no degree, no schooling, they’re more likely to reoffend and cause more victims,” he says.

‘Grateful’

Even rehabilitation-focused prisons like San Quentin remain dangerous places.

“We’ve had assaults where nurses have been hurt by patients,” said Kevin Healy, who trains staff at San Quentin.

“It’s a prison… it comes with the territory.”

Overhead circling the courtyard is a narrow walkway, where guards with deadly rifles can appear at the first sign of unrest.

But it is a far cry from the terrifying maximum-security prisons where both Pagan and Sifuentes began their sentences, and where Sifuentes nearly died after being stabbed.

At least on this sunny festival day, as incarcerated musicians play cheerfully in the courtyard, that violence feels temporarily at bay.

“Honestly, I hate to say ‘I’m grateful to be at this prison,’ says Pagan.

“But in a sense I am.”