"The Great Incarcerator: Dark Little Secret" - Film Screening

The Great Incarcerator: Dark Little Secret directed by D. Jones (Bowling Green, OH)

(This film is screening Opening Night with other films)
Includes reception, appetizers, drinks, script reading and five film screenings.

Great Incarcerator, Part 1: Dark Little Secret examines the United States prison system and its unprecedented explosion in population and the exploitation of dark, poor faces, intentionally relegated to second-class citizenship otherwise known as continued, legal slavery.

Slavery; It is the economic foundation of the United States of America. History tells us that slavery in the U.S. was a brutal system of dehumanization, abolished by the 13th Amendment. History also tells us of a period where the U.S. openly, legally and illegally, kept former slaves and their descendants locked into a second-class citizenship under the guise of “all men are created equal.”

This conflicted past is often presented as what the United States used to be, an example of where we came from but never evidence of where we are today. This is further complicated by the reality of our nation’s first black president standing before us as “proof” that we have not only overcome racial divisions, but also eradicated the oppression against people of color that has marked our past.

Dark Little Secret confronts the present from a different perspective, suggesting slavery, this country’s “original sin,” still exists legally, as clear as the 13th Amendment itself: “Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction…”

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This film screens with:

• 5 Minutes Each directed by Vojin Vasovic (Toronto, ON, Canada) – Animation
• Lunch In Lima directed by Gail Gilbert (Chicago, IL) - Short
• Their Eyes Were Watching Gummy Bears directed by Raafi Rivero (Brooklyn, NY) – Short
• Thicker Than Water directed by Anissa Marie (Atlanta, GA)