Depicting the horrifying cycle of abuse in the state’s prison system, The Alabama Solution is tough to watch. It was already hard to reckon with the related news reports, but what makes this documentary necessary is the way filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman teamed up with activists inside to get a deeper look into the prisons themselves. We mean this literally. A third of the footage comes straight from smuggled phones by the inmates, compiled for more than a decade, with much higher stakes than other works that employed guerilla filmmaking. Piecing together their footage with case reviews, news releases, and the state government’s wasteful, lackluster response, The Alabama Solution reveals the need for a better approach.
"This is a project for and by those who have experienced inhumanity firsthand yet refuse to have their voices snuffed out by a corrupt institution."
— Zachary Lee
"One of the most powerful exposés of the inhumanity of the American prison system I’ve ever seen. Directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, the movie is a scalding portrait of life on the inside that exerts a grip worthy of a thriller."
— Owen Gleiberman
Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
Sundance
1 nomination
