“The Prison Show” might have you tuning into the Radio on Friday nights

by Kajal Kapoor for Winter Film Festival
Meet the director and see the NYC Premiere of the feature film Run on February 21 @7:40PM at LOOK Cinemas (657 West 57th Street) as part of New York City’s 13th Annual Winter Film Festival. Tickets now on sale!

Every Friday night, former inmates and prisoners’ loved ones get together at KPFT in downtown Houston to create “The Prison Show”, a program catered to prisoners and their families. The show keeps prisoners connected to the outside world and allows families to call in and leave messages for prisoners who are listening. In addition, the radio produces a show with live coverage whenever there is an execution in Texas, sometimes airing a prerecorded interview with the condemned prisoner as the State of Texas kills him. Since 1980, the show has shed light on the traumatic and destructive nature of the criminal justice system (even on people who are not behind bars), all the while humanizing prisoners and their loved ones.

When was the last time you turned on the radio? The Prison Show might have you wishing you tuned in.

Director Gabriella Kessler takes us to the recording booth of The Prison Show, a radio program that both covers stories about and broadcasts inmates in Texas. Created by a former convict who felt lost after being released, The Prison Show has a clear mission: to re-humanize inmates. In her documentary, Kessler captures this mission in a simplistic but poignant depiction of the show. In a world where so much of what we see in documentaries relating to prisons have to do with the most scandalous crimes and stories, The Prison Show offers a perspective not often seen. The focus is not on sensationalizing the crimes of any inmate, but rather recognizing the humanity that the criminal justice system so often ignores.

Kessler began filming the project back in 2011 when she was still based in Paris. She thought she was going to create a documentary about women who marry convicts. Since Texas has laws that allow a “proxy marriage” (one where you do not have to be in the same room as the future spouse), Kessler’s research brought her to The Prison Show. The radio program would at times broadcast marriages to convicts. Upon learning about Ray Hill, the founder of the program, she became more interested in the show itself. Kessler saw how he handled the stigma associated with being a former convict and sought to help others who felt as lost as he felt when released from prison.

“If you don’t have someone outside fighting for you, you are basically screwed,” Kessler said. “[Prisons] are punishing people on the outside even though they don’t deserve it.” For many inmates, Ray Hill and The Prison Show team are the people on the outside keeping them going. The radio show takes messages from prisoners’ family members and broadcasts them into the prison and members of the team–who have all been impacted by incarceration in some way–often take calls with inmates. The Prison Show offers something that is missing in prison: love.

In order to mimic the claustrophobia inmates feel, most of the footage is kept within the confines of the studio in which The Prison Show is recorded. Kessler intentionally never brings us to anyone’s home and rarely even enters the zone of prison. While some segments of the radio talk show are supported by overlaying footage, other parts are given the room to breathe and just be a radio show. The rest of the documentary is filled with anecdotes from members of the radio team and their experiences either in prison or as family members of convicts. The honest and unsensational stories told have power in their realness. The focus is not outrageous crimes but the importance of the human in each cell.

Kessler’s ethos as a documentarian is to approach a subject with curiosity to learn more and emerge an expert. As a filmmaker equally grounded in America and France, Kessler feels that she is able to view issues in both countries both at the distance of a foreigner and with the intimacy of a citizen. Her approach to criticism of the American criminal justice system allows viewers to conclude for themselves how they feel about incarceration policies and the death penalty. Though it is clear that Kessler has her own view, her observational methods allow a strong message to be delivered without hitting the audience in the face.