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Prison and Time

Filmmaker Evan Bode animates excerpts of an essay by writer & activist Marvin Wade, who speaks personally about his 25 years of incarceration—and the growth he achieved in spite of, not because of, the inhumane prison system around him.

This collaboration was produced by Project Mend, an organization in Central New York which celebrates the lives and creative work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people as well as other individuals impacted by the criminal legal system.

  • Marvin Wade
    Writer
  • Evan Bode
    Producer
  • Patrick W. Berry
    Producer
  • Marvin Wade
    Key Cast
    "Narrator"
  • Evan Bode
    Animator
    Thine Own Self, A Spot for Frog, Out of Frame
  • Evan Bode
    Editor
    Thine Own Self, A Spot for Frog, Out of Frame
  • Evan Bode
    Sound Design
    Thine Own Self, A Spot for Frog, Out of Frame
  • Evan Bode
    Director
    Thine Own Self, A Spot for Frog, Out of Frame
  • Marvin Wade
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 49 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 1, 2025
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    iPhone
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Justice Film Festival
    New York City, New York
    United States
    February 26, 2026
    Honorable Mention Award
  • ATL DOC: Atlanta Documentary Film Festival
    Atlanta, Georgia
    United States
    Third Place Winner
  • FOLCS International Short Film Competition
    New York City
    United States
    May 5, 2026
    Third Place Winner
  • Wide Open Experimental Film Festival (WOEFF)
    Oklahoma City
    United States
    April 25, 2026
    Official Selection
  • New Jersey International Film Festival
    New Jersey
    United States
    Honorable Mention Award
  • Gimli International Film Festival
    Manitoba
    Canada
    April 25, 2026
    Official Selection
  • Black August Film Festival
    Pasadena, California
    United States
    December 12, 2025
    Official Selection
  • Pebbles Underground Film and Video Art Festival

    Canada
    December 14, 2025
    Audience Award Winner
  • Syracuse International Film Festival
    Syracuse, New York
    United States
    November 13, 2025
    Official Selection
  • New Favs Film Festival
    Brooklyn, New York
    United States
    June 14, 2026
    Official Selection
  • MicroActs Artist Film Screening
    London
    United Kingdom
    December 11, 2025
    Official Selection
  • "When I Think of Freedom" Screening Event
    Syracuse, New York
    United States
    November 13, 2025
Distribution Information
  • The New York Times Op Docs
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
Director Biography - Evan Bode, Marvin Wade

Evan Bode is an award-winning experimental animator, independent filmmaker, mixed media artist, composer, editor, and arts educator. Evan's short films, which break binaries through a stylistic mix of live-action and animation, have been celebrated at major film festivals across the United States and around the world.

Marvin Wade is a Spiritual Activist and family man, born in 1970 and raised in Brooklyn, NY. While incarcerated for 25 years, Marvin wrote multiple books worth of stories, novels, and personal essays on every bit of paper he could find, combining his gift as a storyteller with the art of writing. A celebrated writer and speaker, Marvin has read his work at spaces such as the Malin Gallery, Princeton University, The Everson Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. You can read his writings in publications such as Mend, Voices of Fortune, and recreationwriters.

Project Mend is a multimodal, grassroots-level, open-access national archive and educational initiative centered on the creative work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals and their communities.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

My time spent making this film grew out of my admiration for Marvin Wade's essay, "Time and Prison: Are They Mutually Exclusive?", which was originally published in Mend. Through his writing, Marvin conveys his lived experiences of incarceration with emotional clarity and sincere insight. He offers a moving testimony of personal reinvention and change, while at the same time critiquing a cruel prison system that works to destroy growth and healing, rather than nurture it.

Themes of time and change resonate with animation as a time-based medium, in which I worked slowly to make images change one frame at a time. In the process, I used a mix of materials including watercolors, acrylics, charcoal, markers, pens, colored pencils, and oil pastels to achieve a variety of handcrafted textures.

It was an honor to work with Marvin as a collaborator in the process of adapting his message for animation, and we are both excited to share his story with others.

This film was supported by Project Mend as the first in a planned series of artist/author collaborations, adapting the published work of prison-impacted authors for film to add a new expressive dimension and amplify their voices and stories.