BREAKING CHAINS - in our own voice

Breaking Chains is a unique - and award-winning - film project. It is fully developed and produced by inmates incarcerated at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City. Producing a film about life in a prison comes with challenges. To have the film be produced by the inmates themselves, and with stories told in their own words, is an added challenge.

This is a documentary film project with a zero-dollar budget. All the equipment has been donated by the Semnani Family Foundation, and all filmmakers involved on the outside of the prison has worked pro-bono.

This documentary story will ask the crucial question: what is prison for? In their own words inmates and staff will discuss the two kinds of justice; retributive and/or restorative. Inmates will challenge the system and themselves by asking how real the change and transformation is in prison. If there is a transformation, how does it happen? If not, what are the obstacles?

The fact that questions like these are allowed to be put to everybody involved, that this open discussion is allowed to be held, makes this film project even more unique. We believe it to be a world first. To have film cameras on the inside of the prison, giving inmates the freedom to document life behind bars themselves, offers a glimpse into life and a place rarely seen on film and in media. And they do it with the full support of officers and staff.

There are famous feature films about life in prison. One of the most well-known and revered films is The Shawshank Redemption. There are many documentaries and news stories that are based on investigative reporting and which try to show the harsh realities behind bars and society’s unforgiving attitude against the incarcerated. The age-old discussions of crime and punishment, penalty and redemption are still part of the general discussion in most societies. Rarely are stories told by inmates who are still behind bars.
A recent feature film, Sing Sing, is a prison drama movie. It is based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison, the film centers on a group of incarcerated men involved in the creation of theatrical stage shows through the program. Like the theatre program at Sing Sing, a film and media program has been developed at the Utah State Correctional Facility. At the Utah State Correctional Facility there are inmates with extensive professional backgrounds in the film and media industries who will serve as instructors in the film program, and also perform as part of the documentary film’s crew. It is definitely a world first, based on the concept of inmates educating other inmates, prisoners working as a team to learn and produce. Already the first short documentary they produced was awarded three Silver Telly Awards.