Undoing Time: Cinema and Histories of Incarceration

September 8–November 16, 2022

Including historical and contemporary documentaries, essay films, and works of fiction, this series reflects on the inherent racism and inhumanity of the prison industrial complex while celebrating courageous voices and acts of resistance from inside and outside of prison walls.

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The Infiltrators
Time
The Prison in Twelve Landscapes
Time Has No Sympathy
Rhymes for Young Ghouls

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Past Films

Rabbit in the Moon
Emiko Omori
United States, 1999
Thursday, September 8 7 PM
Emiko Omori and Chizuko Omori in Person
Emiko Omori’s poetic documentary tells the story of Japanese incarceration in the United States, bringing to light the courageous acts of protest and rebellion that have been too often overlooked. Beautifully rendered, Rabbit in the Moon bravely lifts the gag that once muted a culture’s voice of anger. With Chris Kennedy’s lay claim to an island, which revisits the 1969 takeover of Alcatraz Island by the American Indian movement.
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Staggerlee . . . A Conversation with Black Panther Bobby Seale
Francisco Newman, Allen Willis
United States, 1970
Saturday, September 10 7 PM
Introduced by Shani Shay
An illuminating interview with Black Panther Bobby Seale while he was incarcerated in San Francisco County Jail. With an excerpt from Queen Mother Moore Speech at Greenhaven Prison.
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Attica
Cinda Firestone
United States, 1974
BAMPFA Student Committee Pick
Friday, September 23 7 PM
Introduced by Michael Mark Cohen
An essential counterpoint to the official and mass media accounts of the Attica prison uprising and subsequent massacre. “Few social documentaries hit their mark with more harrowing and urgent impact. No matter how you feel about prison reform Attica makes indifference impossible” (Stanley Eichelbaum, San Francisco Examiner). With Christine Choy and Susan Robeson’s Teach Our Children.
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Bush Mama
Haile Gerima
United States, 1975
Saturday, October 1 7 PM
Introduced by Ryanaustin Dennis
Dorothy, the title character, is raising a daughter in Watts while her husband is in prison. Her political awareness develops as she navigates the cacophony and turmoil of the neighborhood and stays connected with him via correspondence.
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Time Has No Sympathy
Kristine Samuelson
United States, 1974
BAMPFA Collection
Sunday, October 23 4:30 PM
Kristine Samuelson in Person
Filmed at San Francisco County Jail, Time Has No Sympathy reveals the specific challenges of incarcerated women, the grinding repetition of prison life, and the need to organize to resist their unjust and inhumane treatment. With Christine Choy and Cynthia Maurizio’s Inside Women Inside and Janis Cole’s Shaggie: Letters from Prison.
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Rhymes for Young Ghouls
Jeff Barnaby
Canada, 2014
Sunday, October 30 7 PM
Introduced by Hertha D. Sweet Wong
Set on the Red Crow Mi’kmaq reservation in 1976, Rhymes for Young Ghouls plays with genre to address the damage wrought by Canada’s residential schools on generations of First Nations people. The film “makes this part of our collective history accessible in a way that no Royal Commission or official report can hope to match” (Chelsea Vowel, CBC).
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The Infiltrators
Cristina Ibarra, Alex Rivera
United States, 2019
Thursday, November 3 7 PM
Introduced by Andrés Cediel
This experimental hybrid of documentary and reenactment details the audacious effort by members of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance to free other undocumented immigrants from inside a Florida detention center.
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Willie
Danny Lyon
United States, 1985
Sunday, November 6 7 PM
Combining footage and images of the exuberant child Willie Jarmillo once was with the prematurely aged man he has become, Lyon reveals the vulnerable, generous person within the tough exterior of a lost soul in this poignant record of the destructive effects of prison on one young man.
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Time
Garrett Bradley
United States, 2020
Saturday, November 12 7 PM
Introduced by Leila Weefur
Combining documentary and home movie footage, Bradley tells an epic story of extraordinary faith and unyielding persistence, following Sibil Fox Richardson’s decades-long quest to free her husband, Rob, from an unreasonably long prison sentence.
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The Prison in Twelve Landscapes
Brett Story
United States, 2016
Wednesday, November 16 7 PM
Introduced by Althea Wasow
Story shows how the extractive carceral system reaches far beyond prison walls to affect the lives and livelihoods of disadvantaged Americans. Sidestepping drama and polemics, the documentary is nonetheless a damning collection of evidence for abolition.
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Undoing Time: Cinema and Histories of Incarceration

September 8–November 16, 2022

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky

Screening in conjunction with the exhibition Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration, and borrowing its title, Undoing Time: Cinema and Histories of Incarceration shows how independent filmmakers have used different approaches to document and interrogate North America’s prison industrial complex. Including historical and contemporary documentaries, essay films, and works of fiction, this series exposes the inherent racism and inhumanity of the criminal justice system while also celebrating courageous voices and acts of resistance from inside and outside of prison walls.

The series includes a treasure from BAMPFA’s collection: Francisco Newman and Allen Willis’s Staggerlee,...

“A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals.” —Fyodor Dostoevsky

The series includes a treasure from BAMPFA’s collection: Francisco Newman and Allen Willis’s Staggerlee, in which Black Panther cofounder Bobby Seale discusses the impetus behind the Black Panther Party’s work to nourish, educate, organize, and defend Black communities, as well as the physical and psychological aspects of incarceration, from inside San Francisco County Jail. Other highlights include Haile Gerima’s Bush Mama and Garrett Bradley’s Time, which both show the toll prison takes on women whose husbands are doing time. Emiko Omori’s Rabbit in the Moon uses her own family’s history to explore the effects on Japanese Americans of their incarceration by the United States in the 1940s, while Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls depicts a young Mi’kmaq woman’s efforts to avoid the residential school that is destroying her community. The Infiltrators chronicles the efforts of a group of undocumented Americans to free others from a detention center where they are held pending deportation. The series wraps with Brett Story’s exceptional essay film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, which looks at the effects of incarceration on individuals and communities across the United States.

—Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator

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Thanks to Mel Vapor, Allen Willis Archives; Elena Rossi-Snook, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Steven K. Hill and Todd Weiner, UCLA Film & Television Archive; Roselly Torres, Third World Newsreel; Shirikiana Aina, Sankofa Films; John Christou, Prospector Films; Alyssa Peeples, Swank Motion Pictures; Cameron Swanagon, Oscilloscope Laboratories; John Klacsmann and Jed Rapfogel, Anthology Film Archives; Lily Spitz, Grasshopper Films; Brad Carroll, Amazon Studios.