The Return
Description
In 1994, California voters enacted the Three Strikes law, mandating a sentence of at least 25 years to life for third-time felons. In 2012, voters amended that law with Prop. 36, which added a provision for non-violent offenders and the radical demand that currently incarcerated prisoners be re-sentenced. “Overnight,” the filmmakers explain, “thousands of lifers became eligible for release.” The Return chronicles what happens next—on an individual and statewide scale. Weaving together the confessional musings of newly freed men, interviews with cautiously hopeful family members and on-the-ground coverage of lawyers working to free eligible lifers, filmmakers Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway (Better This World, SFIFF 2011) build a case against long prison terms for crimes driven by poverty, addiction and mental illness. Whether following Bilal Chatman—who served 11 years of a 150-to-life sentence—on his bike ride to work or Michael Romano—a lawyer who co-authored Prop 36 and heads Stanford’s Justice Advocacy Project—mustering resources to help clients transition to life outside of prison, the film illuminates the long, fraught, and joyful journey from incarceration to resettlement. —Erin Klenow
Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway first collaborated in 2009, with Better This World, which won Best Documentary Feature and Bay Area Documentary Feature at SFIFF in 2011. Since then, as co-directors at Loteria Films, they’ve produced the feature El Poeta (2015) and several New York Times Op-Docs while working on The Return and its accompanying social impact transmedia campaign, The Return Project (thereturnproject.com/). Both have taught in the Media Studies department at UC Berkeley.
Duane de la Vega’s documentaries have been broadcast on PBS, the Documentary Channel and Discovery Channel, and she’s produced short format work for Mother Jones and IFC, among others.
Galloway is also an award-winning documentarian whose work has appeared on Frontline and POV/PBS, and she was recently filmmaker-in-residence at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program.
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/158394274?autoplay=1Film Details
Language English
Year 2016
Runtime 81
Country USA
Director Kelly Duane de la Vega, Katie Galloway
Producer Ariella Ben-Dov, Kelly Duane de la Vega
Writer Kelly Duane de la Vega, Katie Galloway
Editor Greg O'Toole
Cinematographer Mario Furloni
Music Tyler Strickland