ADAMU CHAN: We're all inside of this place, trying to find our way out of here, but also trying to find a way to be together in spite of the separations that are inherent in the prison structure.

DANIELLE METZ: This was 1993, the last day I was with them in the free world.

KRISTAL BUSH: The prisons are so far, I mean, hours away from Philly.

I started the van service to keep families connected.

WOMEN (chanting): Welcome home!

Welcome home!

CHAN: What feels important is how we are building community by using the power of telling our stories to change the system that incarcerated us.

♪ ♪ If any of y'all have any loved ones that's incarcerated, I encourage y'all to go see them, because they are coming home.

METZ: I am home, but I am not free.

I am not free because my sisters are not free.

(chanting): Free her!

Free her!

Free her!

Free her!

STEVIE: I feel a deep responsibility to make sure that this moment doesn't pass.

(speaking indistinctly) BUSH: I felt like a little girl, like, "Oh, my mom and dad!"

METZ: I'm just trying to figure this whole freedom thing out.

What's my purpose?

DEL TORO: This is our Liberated Lives Meet the Maker conversation, uncovering the silent struggles and triumphs of those touched by incarceration while aiming to bridge the gaps of societal narratives with reconciliation, resilience, and redemption.

These four films all highlight the complex journey of reintegration into a world in hopes of redefining their lives.

"A Woman on the Outside," "Commuted," "Hundreds of Thousands," and "What These Walls Won't Hold" are all nuanced tales of individuals and their families as, one by one, the formerly incarcerated emerge into a space of reflection, empathy, and action.

The storytelling in these films don't merely capture moments, it ignites a movement towards understanding and inclusivity.

Liberated Lives is more than a collection of films.

It's a movement towards sheddin light on the unseen and unheard.

Together, these filmmakers are catalysts for change, inviting communities to se beyond the walls that divide us.

Joining us for this panel discussion are Lisa Riordan Seville and Kiara Jones of "A Woman on the Outside," director Nailah Jefferson and producer Darcy McKinnon of "Commuted," filmmaker and artist Stevie Walker-Webb of the film "Hundreds of Thousands," and filmmaker and formerly incarcerated Adamu Chan with "What These Walls Won't Hold."

I want to welcome all of you.

We often hear stories about the inside of prison.

Why did you all feel like it was so important to tell this side of incarcerated life?

Well, you know, there are so many stories happening about prisons and incarceration and policing and all that.

But there are a lot of people who are directly affected by all of these legislative rules that are made to deal with incarceration and criminal justice that are absolutely innocent bystanders of the situation.

They are simply the loved ones of someone who has been entangled or committed some crime, and then their lives are absolutely uprooted in the process.

So it was to turn the camera around and bring people in to realize that, you know, when someone is sentenced to 25 years to life, it's not just them that goes to prison-- their whole family goes with them.

BUSH: Most of the men in my family were incarcerated.

So my dad was incarcerated since I was three years old.

Cousins serving life.

I don't even remember him out of jail, though, that's the thing.

'Cause I was, I was too young.

- What is the main theme or message in "A Woman on the Outside"?

We really think about it as a, a family story and a caretaking story.

Women who had loved ones in prison and really kept it together, very often, when people went to, went to jail or prison-- were the ones who were paying for phone calls, taking care of kids, and doing all the work on the outside that people can't do while incarcerated.

BUSH: Black women, I don't think we're given enough credit for how much we actually bear.

SEVILLE: So Kristal Bush was running her van service, Bridging the Gap, at the time, driving people from Philadelphia to the faraway prisons, often three, four, five hours from the city.

(people talking in background) BUSH: The prisons are so far, I mean, hours.

I started the van service to keep families connected.

It's sort of like therapy for me.

- We're on our way to go see our husbands!

- ♪ Yeah!

I get to see my hubby ♪ ♪ Eh, eh, what, what, uh ♪ SEVILLE: Being able to tell a story about the carceral system that is also very centered on family and care and what it means to try and continue to love and care throughout that separation was something that we really wanted to center in the film.

BUSH: I want my family home, but I don't think we know what it's like to be a family on the outside.

DEL TORO: Our next film tells the story of Danielle, who was sentenced to triple life for being labeled a drug kingpin.

This is "Commuted."

METZ: This was 1993, the last day I was with them in the free world.

I think when we look at criminal justice reform and mass incarceration, a lot of times, women are left out of those stories.

So we wanted to address that, because, indeed, when you think about criminal justice reform, and we think about the face of mass incarceration, it's hardly Black and brown women who are brought up in these conversations.

METZ: Looking at my kids kind of reminds me of where my life could have been.

JEFFERSON: Danielle Metz, she's become an advocate herself, she is getting women out of prison, and she's just very much committed to reflecting her story as a representation of the women, as she says, she left behind.

METZ: I am home, but I am not free.

I am not free because my sisters are not free.

MCKINNON: I think it's also, in Danielle's case, important to know that she was sentenced as a kingpin under a kind of practice of using conspiracy laws to gather a lot of people as part of leverage-- it's a prosecutorial strategy.

So Danielle was never accused of doing any of the actual acts that she was sentenced for.

And that, again, reflects in my mind kind of one of the great cognitive dissonances of our criminal justice system, is that you can literally go to prison for your whole life for things that you are not accused of doing.

METZ: I'm just trying to figure this whole freedom thing out.

What's my purpose?

DEL TORO: And, Darcy, I know Danielle is also a producer of this film.

Why was that important to you all to tell this story?

What she went through, it was really important for us to ensure that she felt like she was in control of her own narrative and a, and a real collaborator.

For us, it was about not only ensuring Danielle felt like she had a voice in her own representation, but also in maybe questioning some of the ways that we've been set up to understand how we work with folks in the documentary field.

JEFFERSON: And this is really her story.

And also be sensitive to the fact that she had triple life.

Her life was taken from her, and she was able to fight and regain it.

So for us, we wanted to be able to empower her and let her have her voice again, and, and really control the narrative, because for so long, she was labeled as something that she wasn't.

And so, for us, it was kind of...

I mean, it was a pleasure, really, to, to be a part of this woman regaining her voice.

- Well, thank you, thank you for sharing that.

And now filmmaker Adamu Chan tells his story of incarceration through the lenses of dignity and determination, and how he found positivity in the most confined space.

Adamu, you tell your story in such a unique way, and you're using poetry, music to capture the power of your voice.

Why did you decide to take this approach?

This is a story about relationships, and it's a story about communities.

And the dominant narratives about, like, resistance against the carceral system are these stories about, like, Attica and about George Jackson and these, like, violent uprisings.

But I feel like people are resisting every day, and, like, some of these other stories are about families on the outside who are, you know, every day, like, going to work, and, like, you know, the mothers and loved ones and... Who are such an important part of this resistance, which is just relationships, like, the relationships that people have, and the relationships that people maintain that actually keep people alive.

Relationships are an act of resiliency and a pushback against the isolation.

Isolation is actually a root cause of crime.

Without feeling loved, it's hard to love.

If you don't care, you're a dangerous person.

CHAN: And also, I wanted to bring my friends into this, into the fold, and tell the stories of the people that I was closest to, through letters and through the writing that we shared across walls, and the communication that we shared across walls seemed like the best, best way to do that.

This is a Valentine's Day card from you.

Very cute.

You always gave me Valentine's Day cards.

"Your presence in my life makes me a better, more whole person."

That's right-- you see?

CHAN: I had the privilege of learning filmmaking inside of San Quentin's media center.

And at the time, yeah, I really understood like, that privilege, like, that we were maybe the only incarcerated people anywhere in the world that were able to have video cameras.

And, like, as a crew, as, as a group of filmmakers inside, that really informed our purpose, that we had this platform that no one else had, and we had to speak to something greater than ourselves, than our own, like, personal stories.

More than anything else, what feels important is how we are building community by using the power of telling our stories to change the system that incarcerated us.

I carried that with me when I came out, too.

I wanted to tell a story that, that reached across walls.

This was a, this was a film that I wanted to prioritize folks who are currently incarcerated as, like, a primary audience.

Like, I wanted to do this for them so that they could watch it.

And one of my impact goals was to try to get a national broadcast, because I know that people inside watch PBS.

I watched it-- it was, it was a big part of my growth as a filmmaker, my interest, and my way of, like, seeing the outside world and expanding my imagination and connecting with other people's stories.

I can't help but think of all those who are still behind the walls of San Quentin, the psychological and emotional distance that cuts through the core of what feels like one of our most human needs, to be deeply connected to others.

Thank you-- in "Hundreds of Thousands," Stevie Walker-Webb tells the story of his brother Waday and how he got lost, quite literally, in the prison system.

You tell your brother's story, but more importantly, you tell the story of mental health in the prison system.

Explain why this particular issue was such an important theme for you.

The mentally divergent, mentally ill community, they are some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, right?

And having a brother who, you know, has mental illness, I see how brilliant he is.

I see how unique and special he is.

And him being diagnosed, you know, with a mental illness should not guarantee that he will one day be handcuffed.

It should not guarantee that he will one day be brutalized.

It should not guarantee that he will spend time in solitary confinement.

My brother's not a criminal.

My brother's not doing anything violent.

He's just having serious delusions right now.

If you are mentally ill in this country, you know, the chances of you being arrested is high.

In fact, 33% of everyone behind bars are battling mental illness, because we've decided in this country that, that the police and justice system, the carceral state, can be a catch-all for mental illness.

My brother has been in solitary confinement for 122 days, a six-by-nine-foot cell.

He committed no crime, but he's being treated like a criminal.

If you're incarcerated and you're mentally ill, they put you on what's called medical seg, or the medical, medical ward.

There's not really much difference between solitary confinement and medical separation, right?

Like, you're still going to be spending your time in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell.

You're still going to be getting one hour out of your cell for every 24 hours that you're in.

And so, like, we know.

We know that when we arrest someone who's mentally ill, we know that we're relegating them to solitary confinement.

And all the studies show that when you, when you incarcerate someone, you are messing with their mental well, their mental health, right?

And then if you're already mentally ill, and you're incarcerated for being mentally ill, and then you're placed in solitary confinement, we know that we're exacerbating the problem.

He's one of hundreds of thousands.

And so I'm here because I just wanted to make it visual, the way that we treat the most vulnerable members of our community.

DEL TORO: Mental health is a, a theme that runs through all of the films in different ways.

Kiara, in your film, we also see the mental health toll on Kristal and her mom.

You know, they, they've also experienced these challenges.

Why did you want to highlight that?

Why was that important to share?

- Well, you know, we're talking about whole human beings in all cases.

There are whole human beings inside incarcerated, and then there's whole human beings outside.

And so these effects, you know, they affect you physically.

She got physically ill, she was mentally ill. Just the stress, the amount of, you know, physical trauma that her body went through in going through all of the, not just the incarceration, but the system.

BUSH: Black women, I don't think we're given enough credit for how much we actually bear.

I'm looked at as, "Oh, she's strong, she's fine."

When really, the strongest people have moments where, you know, they break down.

Systems that are in place that disrupt the Black family.

JONES: You witness what happens when her father is about to get released and then doesn't.

And then when he does get released, and then gets re-incarcerated, and you witness everything that she goes through trying to get her, her nephew out of the foster care system, and going to court, and going to court again, and refiling paperwork.

And all of this weighs on your humanity.

- And, Stevie, I know you, you were touching on some of these issues before.

How did imprisonment make it, make it harder for him or worse for him?

Yeah, it's hard to-- you know, I wanted, I wanted him to watch the film because I wanted him to see how hard we fought for him.

Um... And I remember the day that I screened it with my family, and he sat down, and, you know, two seconds into it, he just went, went, went back into his room, and he didn't come out for, like, a week.

You know, there's also the shame and the stigma that he feels, right?

He still feels like he's done something wrong, even though the charges were dropped, and he's already battling the stigma of being mentally ill, right?

He's already battling that.

He often feels like he's, like, the black sheep in our, out of my mother's six children.

There's already been years of trying to get him to understand it's not your fault, that any, any one of us could become mentally ill. That it's chemical, right?

That for some of us, it's chemical, right?

So there's that stigma that he's battling, and now he has the stigma of feeling like he has...

He's a felon, right?

Even though I tried to explain to him those charges were dropped, you know, but he's still, in his mind, the feeling of that, of those chains on his wrists, the feeling of those walls closing in, I can't erase those.

You know, no, no amount of conversation will take that away from him.

Isolation, violence, these things are not helping anyone's mental health, and in many ways, exacerbating it, making it much worse, and then we expect people to come home and function when they've been traumatized more than they were originally, and carry the shame and stigma of having a criminal record.

When you see what Danielle has done with her life in these seven years-- well, even beyond that, I feel like the fact that Danielle was able to survive a triple life sentence plus 20 years, and through the love and, and support of her family and friends and advocacy groups, she was able to make it home.

So that enough, I think that's a story, that's a testament to kind of the enduring human spirit and what we can overcome, um, in the face of, of an evil that would sentence someone, a mother who was only 26 with a seven-year-old and a three-year-old at home, someone who would, a system that would force someone to endure that.

The fact that she was able to overcome that, for me, that's enough to, to have your story told.

METZ: A mother is the foundation of the family.

But because of the choices I made, it was derailed.

All I can do is be the best person that I can be now.

JEFFERSON: And when we see what Danielle has done with the seven years that she's been home, she's graduated from college.

She has become such a present grandmother and mother to her two children that she left behind and then her two grandchildren.

But not only that, she's fighting.

Like, she's doing what she said she would do when she was in prison.

She told her mom, um, "If I ever come home, I'm gonna fight for the women who I've left behind."

And that's exactly what she's doing.

And, I mean, her story is remarkable.

I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it, it truly is an honor to be able to see someone transform their lives, a life that was really stolen from them.

And in a way, that it was supposed to be stolen three times over.

There was absolutely no way you were gonna get out of prison.

And as she says it, "I was supposed to leave in a box."

But she came home, and with only seven years, she's done amazing things.

I can't wait to see what she does the next seven years, the next 14, 21.

Danielle Metz is a tremendous person.

METZ: If you've been out of somebody's life 23 years, that's how long it probably take to get things back to normal.

DEL TORO: And, Adamu, how are you readjusting to life outside of prison?

You know, I've been privileged to be a part of a community of, you know, folks who've come home and who've supported each other, but it's difficult.

You go through different phases of, um, processing what you've been through and coming to grips with it.

This is my fourth year of being home.

It's difficult.

You know, the first year is, is, you wake up every day and everything's beautiful, and it's, it's a blessing to be home.

And then as you, as you move through it, you know, things get more difficult.

Things begin to settle, and you start coming to terms with what's happened to you and what's happened to the people around you.

WOMEN (chanting): Welcome home!

Welcome home!

Welcome home!

Welcome home!

DEL TORO: And, Stevie, what you capture when he's released, and his face and his expression, you know, he's part of your family, but you see that he's also sort of lost somewhere.

You know, he's somewhere else.

What effect did those days, the 122 days, you said, in solitary confinement?

What impact has that had on him?

STEVIE: Yeah, my brother Waday is this, this, like, wildly imaginative, wildly, like, intellectual being who, you could sit down and talk to him, and he would just blow your mind about all, all, what he holds inside, right?

And, um, I think that his, his trust of the world has been completely destroyed.

For months, he didn't want to come out of his room.

You know, he spent 122 days in solitary confinement.

Um, and in the film, you see us doing this love letter writing campaign for my brother in the front yard, because my nephews, uh, my niece, you know, there were young members of my family who saw that arrest happen.

And on my brother's birthday, August the 8th, I said, "You know what?

We have to write letters.

"And even though he's in jail, we have to write letters "and blow up balloons and have a cake and do this in the front yard, where he was arrested," because I wanted to erase that memory from my family.

I wanted to take that pain from my four-year-old nephew, from my one-year-old nephew, right?

I didn't want them to think about their Uncle Waday and remember that, that's what happened to him.

SHAY-SHAY: Hey, Waday, this is Shay-Shay.

I love and I miss you, and I'm praying for you and keep fighting, and we gonna keep fighting for you.

And this battle will soon be over-- love you.

BOY: Love you, Uncle Waday.

I hope you, uh, keep your head up and have determination and stay strong.

- And so the impact of that night on both him and my entire family and my community is immeasurable.

My family is a family of faith.

You know, we, we're all kind of praying and hoping that eventually he will come back to, um, the light that this event snuffed out in him, that it will, that it will burgeon again.

Um, but I, I don't know if I can, I can speak to how it impacted him.

I know that, you know, it, it still echoes and reverberates, you know, some three, four years later, still, in the hearts and minds of my, of my family members, especially the babies.

The babies were really affected by that.

DEL TORO: Tell me one major thing that you would suggest to overhaul the prison system.

I mean, I don't, I don't think the prison system works.

And these issues of safety that people are, like, have so much anxiety and fear about can be dealt with in, in different ways, um, when we, like, recognize everyone's humanity, um, and the fact that everyone deserves love and care.

Watching Kristal's family experience all sides of the system-- they've experienced violent loss, they've experienced folks going away to prison-- what I feel like is, we need to listen to the communities most affected by both of those things.

And I think they are attended to and listened to least in this conversation.

And so I've always thought that families and communities like Kristal are the folks who should be at the forefront and can be at the forefront, and are often silenced.

Whether you're the person that's outside trying to take care of somebody who's inside, or if you're inside and you need to reach back out, outside, you know, this, the deforestation of the amount of people who have left our lives to go into the abyss of the carceral system is mind-boggling, when you think about how many fathers, brothers, grandparents are lost to the system, and the barren landscape that can be left behind in a family when you remove these people.

But the idea that maybe they can come back, and maybe the "back" isn't fully back in your lives, like, in your homes, but back in a way where you can have influence.

You see in our film how phone calls make, are influential in a child's life, how those communications can be influential on both ways.

So, however, wherever you can get in and try to increase the opportunity of life for people who are incarcerated.

DEL TORO: I want to thank all of you, not just for sharing your films, but your thoughts today on why this discussion on Liberated Lives is so important.