Exclusive Australian Charity Film Screening
SINCE I BEEN DOWN A Film By Gilda Sheppard
One Night Only | Arrivals 6:15pm | Film Start 6:45pm | Luna Leederville
Q&A on transformative Justice in the Australian Context (Guest Speakers Announced Soon) following the screening.
PART PROCEEDS FROM THIS CHARITY SCREENING EVENT GO BACK INTO LOCAL COMMUNITY INITIATIVES FOCUSED ON EARLY INTERVENTION OF YOUTH AT RISK OF ENTERING THE JUSTICE SYSTEM AND LOCAL JUSTICE REFORM INITIATIVES.
About the film
Since I Been Down, is a film that took over a decade to come to fruition. This is a story told in the voices of those who are living it. In 1993, the voters of Washington State allowed a law to pass that sent children to prison for life as “irredeemable”. What has this legacy of captivity done to them, and to their communities?
These children, now adults, could not be silenced. Kimonti Carter is serving life without parole in a Washington state prison based on a harsh 1990s three-strikes law, but rather than accept this condemnation, he has worked to transform inmates’ lives through education. His experience brilliantly elucidates the dehumanization and
trauma that accompanies incarceration, but also demonstrates the possibility of redemption even among those society has called irredeemable.
Gilda Sheppard’s profound and revealing film represents a 12-year journey to investigate the circumstances and inequities that have landed a whole generation of African-American youth in prison.
"The culture of punishment and its consequence is our shared reality in America today. Especially in these times of legislated violence and fear of difference, who better to show us the triumph of the human spirit than those caught behind bars for life?"
Filmmaker Gilda Sheppard
AWARDS
2020 - DOC NYC Audience Favorite and Top Vote Getter
2020 - Social Justice Film Festival’s Feature Documentary Gold Prize
2019 - Artist Trust Recipient, Gilda Sheppard
2019 - MovieMaker Production Services
2021 - Best Cinematographer ThinLine Film Festival, Cahn Nguyen
2021 - Media for a Just Society Awards - Finalist in the film category
2021 - Impact Doc Awards, Award of Excellence
2021 - Best Feature Documentary Northwest Film Forum Local Sightings Film Festival
Critics are saying...
"Since I Been Down is a powerful film by Gilda Sheppard that calls out for emergent strategies to dismantle the system of mass incarceration and what this award-winning documentarian calls the “culture of punishment” and replace it with transformative justice." John Malkin, Santa Cruz Sentinel
"I hope that all of you have seen the amazing film SINCE I BEEN DOWN. If you are not convinced of the liberatory potential of education, I guarantee you will be transformed after seeing this film!” Angela Davis, Activist, Author, DistinguishedProfessor Emerita UC Santa Cruz
"For Black men in their thirties, about 1 in 12 is in prison or jail on any given day."
Criminal Justice Facts from The Sentencing Project
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