Apart

Directed by Jennifer Redfearn

US | 2020 | 86 minutes | Color | DVD | English | Order No. W221290 |

Against the backdrop of a Midwestern state battling industrial decline, an opioid epidemic, and rising incarceration rates, APART offers an intimate portrait of three women who return home from prison and rebuild their lives after being separated from their children for years.

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SYNOPSIS

Since the beginning of the War on Drugs, the number of women in U.S. prisons has increased over 800%. The majority are mothers. Against the backdrop of a Midwestern state battling industrial decline and an opioid epidemic, APART (dir. Jennifer Redfearn) offers an intimate portrait of three women incarcerated on drug-related charges who face the challenge of mothering their children first from prison and then after release. With the help of a unique re-entry program run by Malika, an advocate formerly incarcerated in the same prison, the women lean on each other to find the strength and support to rebuild their lives and relationships with their children. Counselors and instructors teach employment and life skills and help unpack the traumas of living in the wake of addiction and longing for distant loved ones. By highlighting the women’s investment in their own futures and in one another, APART also offers a wider indictment of incarceration in America, underscoring the ways institutions and systems all too often prioritize punishment and discipline over healing.

PRESS

"A powerful portrait of human resilience, APART is both a devastating conversation-starter about a prison system convicting women at double the rate of men and an opioid epidemic that threatens to ruin an entire class of Americans, all while having a backbone of hope thanks to the enthralling portraits painted by director Redfearn."

CriterionCast

"Powerfully personal story"

PBS

"Puts a humanizing face on a population often badly stereotyped as only volatile and dangerous."

POV Magazine

"Explores themes of redemption and hope and regaining trust with one's families and communities to rebuild lives and combat stigmas"

Cullen Lutz Panhandle PBS

"An intimate portrait of motherhood from behind prison walls"

WNYC

"A touching portrait of enduring motherhood and earned second chances."

Cleveland International Film Festival

"...What makes a movie like Apart so rare then, is that women both in and then outside the system tell you what it’s like in real time - and offer a story of success, drive, creativity, and shared support."

Independent

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

Nominee, Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary, News & Doc Emmy Awards
People's Choice Award, Zonta Film Festival

Full Frame Documentary Festival
Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival
Cleveland International Film Festival
Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival
Mountainfilm Film Festival
Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Jennifer Redfearn

Jennifer Redfearn is an Oscar nominated director with a filmmaking style that the press has called “engrossing,” “beautifully cinematic” and “intensely human.” She directed SUN COME UP, about a small island community losing their land to rising seas. SUN COME UP was nominated for an Academy Award and screened in theaters across the U.S. Her previous ITVS co-production, TOCANDO LA LUZ (TOUCH THE LIGHT), an intimate story about three blind women from Havana, Cuba, premiered at Full Frame where it won the Charles E. Guggenheim Award. Jennifer was also a field producer, consulting producer and additional cameraperson on the SXSW audience award winner LANDFILL HARMONIC. She has produced and edited over ten short films, and she has produced television documentaries for PBS, HBO, National Geographic, CNN, and the Discovery Channel. Jennifer Redfearn is the director of the documentary program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Discussion Guide

ITVS Press Release

Independent Lens Broadcast Social Media Toolkit

Credits:

Director/Producer: Jennifer Redfearn

Producer/Director of Photography: Tim Metzger

Editors: Rabab Haj Yahya, Francisco Bello A.C.E.

Francisco Bello, Editor

Original Music: Morgan Kibby

Executive Producers: Patty Quillin, Sally Jo Fifer & Lois Vossen

Broadcaster: Independent Lens

A Co-Production of ITVS. Additional funding by The Cleveland Foundation, IDA, Tribeca Film Institute, LEF Foundation, Good Gravy Films, and the Meadow Fund.

KEY PARTICIPANTS:

Tomika Daniel

Amanda Freed

Lydia L.

Malika Kidd

Cheryl Walcott

Ria Daniel

L Blair

Bailee

Tyler

Derek

Ashton

Landon

Subject Areas

A Woman on the Outside

A deeply American story about the legacy of mass incarceration. Kristal Bush, who has watched nearly every man in her life disappear into prison, channels her struggle into reuniting other Philadelphia families divided by the correctional system.

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Fly So Far

A grave warning of how far state control of women’s bodies can go, FLY SO FAR follows Teodora Vásquez, who was sentenced to thirty years in a Salvadorean prison after she suffered a stillbirth.

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WINN

This powerful, short documentary exposes the horrifying experience that incarcerated pregnant women endure and documents Pamela Winn's mission to end shackling and ultimately prison birth.

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Belly of the Beast

Filmed over seven years with extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, this Emmy-winning documentary exposes a pattern of illegal sterilizations, modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California prisons.

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The Grey Area: Feminism Behind Bars

Closed captioned and audio described DVD available on request. Please email [email protected]

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Blind Spot: Murder by Women

Because murder by women is still relatively rare--only one out of eight murders in the United States is committed by a woman--women's own stories provide unique insights into the circumstances leading to these violent acts. In this absorbing documentary, intimate one-on-one interviews with six women murderers are combined with re-enactments of their background experience and visual re-creations of their interior lives. Sharing and reflecting on their memories, fantasies, dreams, and anger, the six women candidly describe their actions as perpetrators in detail and address the issue of having taken a life. Interspersed between their separate stories are their individual reflections on coping strategies, and life and relationships in prison. From the Academy and Emmy-award winning filmmakers responsible for DIALOGUES WITH MADWOMEN, BLIND SPOT is a provocative and riveting encounter with throw-away children, out-of-control adults, and the emotional, psychological and spiritual consequences of murder.

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900 Women

“The Louisiana Correctional Institute is located in the swamps of southern Louisiana in the small town of St. Gabriel. Built in 1970 to house an increasing population of female convicts, today it houses the state's most dangerous female prisoners and often exceeds its population capacity of 900. 75% of these are mothers and one fourth of them are serving sentences of fifteen years or more. The prison compound has a surreal quality; there are no searchlight-capped towers or barbed wire fences. Filmmaker Khadivi delivers a striking, sensitive portrait of life in this deceptively peaceful atmosphere, which is filled with stories of life on the streets, abuse, freedom, childbirth and motherhood. Six women - a grandmother, a young high school student, a pregnant woman, a recovering heroin addict, a prison guard, and the only woman on death row - were brave enough to share their frustrations and hopes. Produced by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Jonathan Stack ("The Farm").” - Human Rights Watch Film Festival Catalogue

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Troop 1500

Their mothers may be convicted thieves, murderers and drug dealers, but the girls of Troop 1500 want to be doctors, social workers and marine biologists. With meetings once a month at Hilltop Prison in Gatesville, Texas, this innovative Girl Scout program brings daughters together with their inmate mothers, offering them a chance to rebuild their broken relationships. Intimately involved with the troop for several years, the directors took their cameras far beyond meetings to explore the painful context of broken families. Powerful insight comes from interviews shot by the girls themselves, which reveal their conflicted feelings of anger and joy, abandonment and intimacy—as well as the deep influence their mothers still have on them. An estimated 1.5 million children have incarcerated parents and 90 percent of female inmates are single parents. Their daughters are six times more likely to land in the juvenile justice system. TROOP 1500 poignantly reveals how an inspired yet controversial effort by the more than 90-year old Girl Scouts organization is working to help these at-risk young girls deal with their unique circumstances and break the cycle of crime within families.

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Freedom Road

FREEDOM ROAD is a barren stretch that leads in and out of the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Yet for some of the women incarcerated there, freedom has been redefined through the power of the pen. A testament to the profound influence of arts and education, Lorna Johnson’s compelling film features six female prisoners who are part of a unique memoir-writing workshop called “Woman is the Word.” Reading classic autobiographies such as INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL by Harriet Ann Jacobs and THE CANCER JOURNALS by Audre Lorde, the women are empowered to claim the events of their own lives and retell their own stories—ultimately liberating them from long-held secrets and silence. Moving interviews with the women inmates, their instructors and family members combined with verité footage of their fascinating classroom discussions reveal how poverty, under-education, domestic abuse have had a role in the destiny of many women in the program. Ultimately, the film examines the devastating cycle of imprisonment for the poor and underprivileged, and points to an inspired embodiment of prison reform.

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Sin by Silence

From behind prison walls, a group of extraordinary women are shattering misconceptions of domestic violence. An important film that profiles Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA), the US prison system’s first inmate initiated group and led by women, SIN BY SILENCE is an essential resource featuring more than two hours of bonus materials, including interviews with experts on abusive relationships, law enforcement leaders and leaders in faith-based communities about domestic violence, and more. Created by Brenda Clubine in 1989, CWAA has changed laws for battered women, raised awareness for those on the outside, and educated a system that does not fully comprehend the complexities of domestic abuse. Like many CWAA members, Brenda’s years of inflicted abuse were never fully revealed. But because of CWAA’s work and advocacy, new laws were enacted that now allow incarcerated survivors to challenge their original conviction. With unprecedented access inside the California Institution for Women, this emotionally packed documentary tells the stories of courageous women who have learned from their past, are changing their future, and teaching us how domestic violence affects each and every person.

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Mothers of Bedford

Women are the fastest-growing U.S. prison population today. Eighty percent are mothers of school-age children. Jenifer McShane's absorbing documentary gives human dimensions to these rarely reported statistics, taking us inside Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison north of New York City. Shot over four years, MOTHERS OF BEDFORD follows five women - of diverse backgrounds and incarcerated for different reasons- in dual struggles to be engaged in their children's lives and become their better selves. It shows how long-term sentences affect mother-child relationships and how Bedford's innovative Children's Center helps women maintain and improve bonds with children and adult relatives awaiting their return. Whether it be parenting's normal frustrations to celebrating a special day, from both inside and out of the prison walls, this moving film provides unprecedented access to a little known, rarely shown, community of women.

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OUR CATALOG

Apart

SYNOPSIS

PRESS

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Subject Areas

RELATED LINKS

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

A Woman on the Outside

Fly So Far

WINN

Belly of the Beast

The Grey Area: Feminism Behind Bars

Blind Spot: Murder by Women

900 Women

Troop 1500

Freedom Road

Sin by Silence

Mothers of Bedford