Not a Prison Film

Do prison films confine our imagination? In this live recording from the “Carceral Media Ecologies—And How To Break Them” symposium at UC, Santa Cruz (May 13, 2026), Visualizing Abolition co-director Gina Dent joins filmmakers Adamu Chan and Gilda Sheppard to discuss the limitations and horizons of the “prison film.” Adamu Chan reflects on making What These Walls Won’t Hold, which documents the relationships and organizing networks that sustained incarcerated people in San Quentin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gilda Sheppard discusses her film Since I Been Down, which follows members of the Black Prisoners Caucus in Washington state, and their prisoner-initiated educational program, TEACH (Taking Education and Creating History). The conversation pushes past the category of “prison film” to consider prisons as sites of study and political education. Citations Black Prisoners Caucus TEACH (Taking Education and Creating History) bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool” (poem) C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination Documentary Accountability Working Group (DAWG), “From Reflection to Release: A Framework for Values, Ethics, and Accountability in Nonfiction” Media resources What These Walls Won't Hold (dir. Adamu Chan, 2022) Since I Been Down (dir. Gilda Sheppard, 2019) BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (dir. Kahlil Joseph, 2025) Unmaking the Prison Image is a production of Visualizing Abolition, a public scholarship initiative at the University of California, Santa Cruz, directed by Gina Dent and Rachel Nelson. Additional support comes from Amherst College. Full transcripts for all episodes are available at https://ias.ucsc.edu/unmaking-the-prison-image/. Theme music for Visualizing Abolition is Pray by Terri Lyne Carrington and Social Science. Our cover art features an image from Christopher Harris’s still/here.