As part of the First Prison Film Festival in San Quentin

No standing ovation at the Cannes or Sundance film festivals can match the unique emotional intensity afforded a filmmaker named B. Raheem Ballard on Thursday afternoon in a stuffy San Quentin chapel.

That morning, Ballard, who has been incarcerated for 22 years on robbery and murder charges, missed the world premiere of a film he directed. Die aloneand the subsequent question-and-answer session with comedian W. Kamau Bell, as the event conflicted with his parole board hearing.

“Quick update,” said one of the festival’s two moderators, Juan Moreno Haines, interrupting the afternoon awards ceremony. “Raheem has been found fit.” Ballard, sentenced to prison until 2039, had just learned he would soon be released and blinked at a roaring crowd in the chapel. “I’m overwhelmed,” he said. Moments later, Ballard’s film won an International Documentary Association award, but he had left to tell his family the day’s news.

About 300 people, including American fiction Director Cord Jefferson, Singing Singing Director Greg Kwedar, Just mercy Producer Scott Budnick, The inspection Director Elegance Bratton and executive producer of PBS POV series, Erika Dilday, gathered in Chapel B for the San Quentin Film Festival. The first film festival ever held in a prison took place on October 10th and 11th at the San Francisco Bay Area Correctional Facility and included screenings of Oscar nominees such as A24 Singing Singing and Netflix Daughters alongside films by current and formerly incarcerated filmmakers. Sitting alongside industry representatives in the audience were men like Ballard, currently incarcerated at San Quentin, wearing their blue California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation uniforms.

Just beyond the barbed wire fences and beneath the windows of the building that until two months ago housed California’s death row, the morning began with a red step-and-repeat carpet in the courtyard, where a prison band played and coffee and pastries were served .

“I’m very worried,” said Louis Sale, whose 10-minute film Healing through hulawould premiere that morning. “I’m excited to see how the story is received.” That afternoon, Sale, a Hawaiian veteran serving a 15-year prison sentence, won the best documentary award for his film about an unusual club that runs hula in San Quentin. Practiced dance. In his comments to the audience, Sale dedicated his film to the Hawaiian culture he abandoned at age 14 “because I thought I was too cool” and the man he killed in a drunk driving incident in 2016. Vivaldo Veloso.

The event was conceived by Cori Thomas, a San Quentin playwright and volunteer, and Rahsaan “New York” Thomas (no relation), co-host and producer of the award-winning play ringing in the ears Podcast released in 2023 from San Quentin.

There were signs throughout the day that this was not your typical film festival. San Quentin Warden Chance Andres gave an opening statement praising the “good vibes” watching correctional officers in green uniforms. Lunch consisted of nonsense sandwiches and pretzels: “We didn’t fund everything we wanted, so you all get government lunches,” Rahsaan said. The power briefly went out when there were too many fans walking in the chapel and no one was allowed to bring a cell phone into the jail, leading to a rare 2024 movie event where everyone actually appeared to be looking at the same screen at the front of the room. During a filmmaker panel, one of the incarcerated directors asked if anyone from the Tracy Morgan TBS show was there The last OG in the audience – there wasn’t, but he looked because he didn’t want to offend when he described the show about an ex-convict as fake. “Your writers for these types of shows, we’re here,” he said. “Don’t guess, call me.” In presenting one of the day’s awards, Anthony Gomez, who participates in San Quentin’s film and television production training program “Forward This,” said, “I don’t know about you all, but today I feel free.”

For members of the Hollywood community in attendance, the event was a refreshing departure from the norm. “This is one of the best days of my life,” Jefferson said. Kwedar, who is currently on the awards tour Singing Singingsaid that this process “can easily destroy your idea of ​​what success is.” But when I sit in the chapel at San Quentin, “I feel restored. I just feel more alive.”

During the evening screening of Singing Singingin which Colman Domingo and Paul Raci star alongside a cast of formerly incarcerated men, the audience responded to key moments and lines by snapping their fingers, leaning forward in their seats and saying “that’s right” and “preach,” as the film about an art program depicts happened in the Sing Sing maximum security prison.

As the question-and-answer session was still underway after the 7:55 p.m. screening, Haines interrupted the proceedings and said, “You know what time it is. “Don’t Miss the Count,” a reminder for anyone in the audience who has been classified as “closely held,” meaning under tighter supervision, to return to their cells.

“We represent all of you,” Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, an actor who served with Sing Sing and plays a version of himself in the film, said during the question-and-answer session. “Thanks for the inspiration.”