Inside this maximum security prison, a film festival proves 'a little bit healing'

At the Sing Sing maximum security prison, about 40 miles north of New York City, the campus chapel was bustling with activity on a recent Thursday. Guests and participants of the first-ever Sing Sing Film Festival wore name tags and talked excitedly amongst each other, while a bevy of snacks lay on a table in front of the altar.

It looked just like any other film festival, and if you didn't notice that some of the men in the room wore green slacks, you might forget that many of the day's guests and participants were incarcerated.

"I've never been a part of, like, a film festival. I've never really seen it, didn't really think, you know, it was possible for people who grew up how we grow up," said Michael Hoffler, who's incarcerated at Sing Sing and served on the festival jury along with four other men, also incarcerated.

The five documentaries selected to play at the festival all dealt in some way with the criminal justice system — a system the jury knew well. The program was spearheaded by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit criminal justice newsroom that enlisted a filmmaker to train the men on how to judge technical aspects like storytelling and cinematography. And the men were encouraged to use their experiences with the criminal justice system to evaluate the films' authenticity.

"We wanted to give those incarcerated people the opportunity to use their lived experience in a positive way in order to vet and view these films. To say, 'Hey, this is authentic or this isn't,'" said Lawrence Bartley, a driving force behind the event and a person who had previously been incarcerated at Sing Sing. After his release in 2018, he joined The Marshall Project, where he creates print and video journalism.

Bartley hoped the Sing Sing Film Festival would spotlight the thoughts and feelings of those society tends to undervalue.

"They're human beings. They're human beings with hopes and dreams and wants, just like everyone else," he said.

That humanity shone through in the films as well. Like in For Our Children from 2022, which centers women seeking justice for their sons who had been victims of police brutality. Alex Aguilar, an alternate juror, said the film brought him back to his childhood in Long Island, N.Y.

"I really grew up thinking it was normal for police to pick you up, take you out of your car, search your car if they wanted to. They could beat you up," he said.

And 2024's Daughters — a film that follows the lives of four young girls as they prepared for a father-daughter dance at a prison in Washington, D.C. — reminded Hoffler of the relationship he has with his own children.

"Being incarcerated doesn't absolve us of our responsibility as a parent. We did what we did, but we still have a responsibility to help raise these children that we left," Hoffler said.

For Jonathan Mills — at 61 the oldest of the jurors — watching the films and discussing them with the other men was therapeutic.

"It's a little bit healing, and it helped me develop my better social skills," he said.

The Sing Sing festival was inspired by the first-ever film festival for incarcerated men held at California's San Quentin state prison in early October.

"What these programs do — they're an excuse for proximity. They're bringing people from different worlds together," said Rahsaan Thomas, who co-founded the San Quentin festival, and is known for co-hosting the award-winning podcast Ear Hustle about life in prison.

That proximity was on full display as guests, jurors and other incarcerated men mingled for hours before the actual program began. All attendees had to relinquish their phones. Without a watch, your only sense of time passing came from the changing light peeking through the stained glass windows.

That proximity also allowed for unexpected interactions even during the program, like when one incarcerated man stood up to direct a question about prison resources to Daniel Martuscello, the commissioner of New York state's Department of Corrections. Martuscello stepped up to a mic and responded.

"We got to figure out the staffing thing because without that, we can't do all the things that we do," he said. "There's a lot of ideas out there, and I wouldn't say no, on first blush, to any of the ideas that are out there."

More than 17% of staff positions at Sing Sing are currently vacant, according to data from the Correctional Association of New York.

The Sing Sing festival program also featured the screening of three short films, and concluded with a Q&A between the five jurors and Mindy Goldberg, a producer of Daughters, and Contessa Gayles, director of Songs from the Hole. The latter film, about an incarcerated musician processing his brother's death as well as his own past, took the festival's top prize. Speaking after the program, Gayles said she made the film for the incarcerated.

"Every time that we've had a film festival screening on the outside, we've made sure whatever city we're in that we're going to also bring the film into a prison," she said. "And to have the jury here be all comprised of incarcerated people, and for them to honor us with the award means everything."

Kiki Weston, who along with Lawrence Bartley helped organize the event, hopes this festival is the first of many at Sing Sing, and beyond.

"I would love to have this in every state," she said. "I would love to have it at one of our women's facilities just to give women access to this type of stuff. So I would love for it to be everywhere. And I think it's not too far. Like it's not too far-fetched to dream that big. I just think it can happen."