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Talkhouse

Lane Michael Stanley (he/they) is a transgender writer and director making community-embedded work around queerness, healing, grief, recovery, restorative justice, and housing insecurity. Their films include their award-winning debut feature film Addict Named Hal (2022); their upcoming second feature T (currently in post-production after being filmed incrementally over the lead actor’s first two years on Testosterone); their short films Untie, Promise and Boifriend (co-directed with Rebecca Marquardt); and their upcoming documentary Quentin Blue. Their plays and films have been presented at 20 theaters and 33 film festivals in 33 states, in addition to soup kitchens, shelters, addiction treatment centers, meditation gardens, and San Quentin State Prison. Lane holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Texas at Austin and is the 2023-2024 Resident Artist with coLAB Arts and Mission First Housing Group. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.lanemichaelstanley.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.lanemichaelstanley.com</a>.

Lane Michael Stanley

Film

Walking the Yard in Street Clothes: Premiering Quentin Blue Inside San Quentin

Gilda Sheppard is an award-winning non-fiction filmmaker whose new feature documentary, <a href="https://www.sinceibeendown.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Since I Been Down</a>, is now available on VOD. Sheppard is a 2017 Hedgebrook Fellow for documentary film and a 2019 recipient of an Artist Trust Fellowship. Her documentaries include stories of resilience of Liberian women and children refugees in Ghana; stories of three generations of Black families in an urban neighborhood; and a film ethnography of stories from folklore started by Zora Neale Hurston in Alabama&#8217;s AfricaTown. For over a decade, Sheppard has taught sociology classes in Washington State prisons and is a co-founder and faculty for FEPPS- Freedom Education for Puget Sound, an organization offering college credited courses at Washington Correctional Center for Women. Gilda is a member of the faculty at The Evergreen State College Tacoma Campus. (Photo by Elliot Solomon, courtesy Gilda Sheppard.)

Gilda Sheppard

Film: To Imagine What is Possible

Alix Lambert is a filmmaker, photographer and writer living in NYC. Her films include the Independent Spirit Award-nominated The Mark of Cain, Bayou Blue and Mentor, and she has also directed shorts and web series. She is currently in production on Goodbye, Fat Larry. Lambert is the author of four books: Mastering The Melon, The Silencing, Russian Prison Tattoos and Crime. Learn more about her work <a href="http://pinkghettoproductions.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.

Alix Lambert

Exclusive Book Extract: From Courtroom, Alix Lambert Talks to Albert Woodfox

Fernando Grostein Andrade is a Los Angeles-based Brazilian filmmaker and media entrepreneur, represented by Untitled Entertainment. His new film <a href="https://www.bluefoxentertainment.com/films/abe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Abe</a>, starring Noah Schnapp, Seu Jorge and Mark Margolis, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and is now available on VOD. He created and directed Quebrando o Tabu, a documentary that discusses alternative solutions to the war on drugs featuring six heads of state, including Jimmy Carter and Fernando Henrique Cardoso. It was distributed in 22 countries, became a two-season 10-episode TV series, show-run by Fernando, and was spun off into an online media channel with 10 million followers, becoming the largest human rights internet outlet in Brazil with the biggest Facebook engagement rate in all Brazilian media. Fernando was also one of the creators of Carcereiros, a 2017 MIPTV award-winning drama TV series, for which he directed five episodes. He reactivated a theater group formed by inmates inside a maximum-security penitentiary called Do Lado de Ca, many of whom were later cast in many productions. Fernando co-founded Mapa Educação, a youth movement that advocates for quality in public education in Brazil and directed the documentary Wandering Heart, featuring Caetano Veloso and special appearances by Almodóvar, Antonioni and Giselle Bündchen. With an ever-growing online presence, Fernando’s coming-out video on YouTube had 250k views and sparkled an online debate about acceptance in Brazil. Fernando is a columnist for two of the largest Brazilian media outlets, Folha de São Paulo and Veja. Follow him on Instagram <a href="https://www.instagram.com/grosteinandrade/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>. (Picture by Fernando Siqueira.)

Fernando Grostein Andrade

What Starting a Prison Theatre Group Taught Me About Empathy and Understanding

Born DeQuantes Lamar on October 4, 1989, Atlanta rapper <a href="https://mn2s.com/booking-agency/live-roster/rich-homie-quan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rich Homie Quan</a> is the eldest of three siblings that were raised in a single family home. Originally having dreams of becoming a professional baseball player, Quan could not ignore his passion for music.
Possessing an undeniable talent for storytelling, his focus quickly changed to rapping. Dedicating countless hours in the studio, he began churning out street hit after hit, which eventually resulted in the 2008 smash “Stay Down” featuring the Stack Money Boys.
Having already collaborated with artists like Young Thug, Birdman, and Rick Ross, Rich Homie Quan&#8217;s debut studio album Rich as in Spirit was released on March 16, 2018.

Rich Homie Quan

Music

Rich Homie Quan: Rich as in Spirit, Part One

Domenic Palermo is an artist and a musician, founder of both Death of Lovers and the award-winning and Billboard-charting NOTHING. Hailing from the Kensington/Frankford areas of Philadelphia, Palermo saw many of his friends and family fall prey to the trappings of an underprivileged neighborhood, spending time in and out of the justice system. Palermo himself also made a near fatal decision that landed him in a correctional facility, a moment that he vowed to avoid from then forward. Since then, Palermo has emerged as not only a successful artist and writer, but an advocate for Philadelphia and a vocal proponent for change, on an individual level as well as in the cogs of the justice system. It’s with this personal and peripheral experience that he created Belly of the Beats, a nonprofit with several corporate partners that seeks to help the incarcerated and their families.

Domenic Palermo

Returned Citizens: Wayne Kramer and Domenic Palermo on Prison Reform

Leigh Janiak is a filmmaker living in Los Angeles. Her first feature film, <a href="http://www.magnetreleasing.com/honeymoon/" target="_blank">Honeymoon</a>, starring Game of Thrones&#8216; Rose Leslie and Penny Dreadful&#8216;s Harry Treadaway premiered at SXSW this past spring and continues to play at festivals around the world, including the Tribeca Film Festival and the Edinburgh Film Festival. Magnet released the movie this past fall.

prison