Willie

This film is a poignant record of the destructive effects of prison on one young man, shot in the environs of Lyon’s Bernalillo, New Mexico, home. Lyon has an obvious rapport with Willie Jarmillo and his friends, many of whom he photographed for over a decade and who are frank and unguarded in his presence. After repeated prison sentences for minor offenses, Jarmillo struggled to build a life on the outside. Combining footage and images of the exuberant child Jarmillo once was with the prematurely aged man he has become, Lyon reveals the vulnerable, kind, generous person within the tough exterior of a lost soul.