The injustice of solitary confinement and the transformative power of art are explored in HERMAN’S HOUSE, a feature documentary that follows the unlikely friendship between a New York artist and one of America’s most famous inmates as they collaborate on an acclaimed art project.
HERMAN’S HOUSE makes its New York premiere this weekend. (Buy tickets here.) CAIC members will be there to speak and answer questions, along with the film’s director, after the following screenings:
Friday, April 19, 7:00 PM (SOLD OUT!)
Moderator: Anna Sale, WNYC Reporter
Speaker: Taylor Pendergrass, Senior Staff Attorney, New York Civil Liberties Union
Speaker: Jackie Summell, Artist, Activist Featured in Film
Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
Friday, April 19, 9:15 PM
Speaker: Five, Mualimm-AK, NYC Jails Action Coalition
Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
Saturday, April 20, 7:00 PM
Moderator: King Downing, Campaign to End the New Jim Crow
Speaker: Soffiyah Elijah, Executive Director, Correctional Association
Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
Saturday, April 20, 9:15 PM
Speaker: Jean Casella, Editor, SolitaryWatch.com
Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
Sunday, April 21, 3:00 PM
Speaker: Angad Bhalla, Director of Herman’s House
Speaker: Representatives from Metro NY Religious Campaign Against Torture
More on HERMAN’S HOUSE from the film’s website:
In 1972, New Orleans native Herman Joshua Wallace (b. 1941) was serving a 25-year sentence for bank robbery when he was accused of murdering an Angola Prison guard and thrown into solitary confinement. Many believed him wrongfully convicted. Appeals were made but Herman remained in jail and—to increasingly widespread outrage—in solitary. Years passed with one day much like the next. Then in 2001 Herman received a perspective-shifting letter from a Jackie Sumell, a young art student, who posed the provocative question:“What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?”
Thus began an inspired creative dialogue, unfolding over hundreds of letters and phone calls and yielding a multi-faceted collaborative project that includes the exhibition “The House That Herman Built.” The revelatory art installation—featuring a full-scale wooden model of Herman’s cell and detailed plans of his dream home—has brought thousands of gallery visitors around the world face-to-face with the harsh realities of the American prison system. But as Herman’s House reveals, the exhibition is just the first step.
With compassion and meaningful artistry, HERMAN’S HOUSE takes us inside the lives and imaginations of two unforgettable characters–forging a friendship and building a dream in the struggle to end the “cruel and unusual punishment” of long-term solitary confinement.
I saw the movie Hermans House with my wife Paula yesterday afternoon and I had tears in my eyes throughout the picture. Why do we live in such an imperfect world where injustice is justice and war is called peace.