Based on letters written by Sergei Paradjanov and other prisoners while incarcerated in Soviet jails, Prison Art explores the creation of art under conditions that often destroy a person's individuality. Filmed in the prison yards of Armenia, it lingers on the artists, as well as their art. Weathered faces, nicotine–stained fingers, and eyes caught between brutality and hope intertwine with the art created along the jail walls: crosses or angels in circles of barbed wire, rosaries made from a combination of paste and soot, intricate wood engravings, and miniature churches created out of clay and stone. Weaving through the images and the art are the letters of current and former prisoners, including the eloquent Paradjanov, reminding the viewer of the cost of an enforced solitude, and what it means to be denied the right to live freely with the rest of society.