Cages(2017)

Defending Our Lives(en)

Documentary about the magnitude and severity of domestic violence. This film features four women imprisoned for killing their batterers and their terrifying personal testimonies. It won an Oscar at the 66th Academy Awards in 1994 for Documentary Short Subject.

Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison(en)

Pete and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced this rare document of of work songs by inmates of the Ellis Unit. Worksongs helped African American prisoners survive the grueling work demanded of them. With mechanization and integration, worksongs like these died out shortly after this film was made.

Standard Operating Procedure(en)

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

From Gaol to Rectory(xx)

On a blustery January day bishops arrive for the opening of the new Knutsford Test School.

Cruel and Unusual(en)

Five transgender women share their prison experiences. Interviews with attorneys, doctors, and other experts are also included.

Temps mort(fr)

An exchange of video messages between an artist and an inmate, a surprising and intimate portrait from behind prison walls.

Belzer Behind Bars(en)

Turn off the alarms and throw away the keys as these two comics set the inmates of Arizona State Prison rolling with laughter.

The Big One(en)

The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.

Life After Life(en)

After decades behind bars, three men set out to prove success can lie on the other side of tragedy. Follows the stories of Harrison, Noel, and Chris as they return home from San Quentin State Prison. After spending most of their lives incarcerated, they are forced to reconcile their perception of themselves with a reality they are unprepared for. Each struggles to overcome personal demons and reconstruct their fractured lives. Grappling with day-to-day challenges and striving for success, they work to reconnect with family and provide for themselves for the first time in their adult lives. Told in an unadorned vérité style, we experience the truth of their heartaches and triumphs. As their stories unfold over weeks, months and years, the precarious nature of freedom after incarceration in America is revealed.

Mula(es)

Francisco, Isabel, Fco. Javier and David are captured in different parts of the world when they worked as "mules" to overcome the crisis. They tell their stories from the deal that turned them into traffickers to their release from prison.

Non-Stop(eu)

Province of Ciudad Real, Spain, December 29, 1990. During the annual march to the Herrera de la Mancha prison, held in support of the members of the terrorist gang ETA imprisoned there, the Basque rock band Negu Gorriak holds a concert, which is recorded, edited on video and turned into a tool of vindication. Decades later, a film crew tries to elaborate a personal essay around this event and its meaning.

For Somebody Else(en)

We follow three women on an emotional and thought-provoking journey as they lend their bodies and carry someone else's child.

Calling Mother(fi)

Calling Mother is about the moments when you just have to call your mum. It is a compilation of phone calls made by different people to their mothers. Film follows the lifespan of a human being from youth to adulthood, a child changing from a dependent to a caretaker. Phone calls are connected by images of an old telephone center and a story of a young mother who doesn’t have a mother to call.

Wrong Fellows(nl)

Documentary about four maffia-like friends based in Amsterdam.

Dias Atípicos(pt)

Behind Bars(en)

Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.

Ines, Memories of a Lifetime(en)

When Ines died, she left a very particular legacy, 10 books that read 'For my children'; it was the story of her life. Marked by a youth idyllic love, Ines was forced to marry a violent and womanizer man with whom she had 20 children. In the 50s, she managed to get divorce and 20 years after her death, Luisa, great-granddaughter of INES, reads, rescues and makes visible her history.

Extreme Consequences: The Reality of Prison Life(en)

A compelling look at the choices that lead to incarceration and the reality of being locked up in Pelican Bay State Prison.

Privacy of Wounds(ar)

Set as an experiment in a simulated cell in Oslo, three former political prisoners are locked up for three days with no film crew, to revisit their memories of Syria's darkest detention facilities.

The Condemned(en)

With unprecedented access, this documentary looks into the hidden world of one of Russia's most impenetrable and remote institutions - a maximum security prison exclusively for murderers. Deep inside the land of the gulags, this is the end of the line for some of Russia's most dangerous criminals - 260 men who have collectively killed nearly 800 people. The film delves deep into the mind and soul of some of these prisoners. In brutally frank and uncensored interviews the inmates speak of their crimes, life and death, redemption and remorselessness, insanity and hope. The film tracks them though their unrelenting days over several months, lifting the veil on one of Russia's most secretive subcultures to reveal what happens when a man is locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours every day, for life. A startling insight into inscrutable minds and the forbidding world they have been condemned to. (Storyville)