30/10/2025

LYFE THURSDAY | OCT 30, 2025

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Malaysian Paper

/thesundaily /

Turning pain, ugly past into motion art

H ELD inside a notorious prison among some of California’s most dangerous felons, the San Quentin Film Festival is not your typical Hollywood affair. Red-carpet interviews take place just metres away from a now dormant execution chamber where hundreds of death-row inmates met grisly ends. Convicted murderers sit alongside famous actors and journalists, applauding films made by their fellow inmates. Among them is Ryan Pagan, serving 77 years for first-degree murder. “I always wanted to be an actor – but unfortunately that’s not the life I ended up living,” explained Pagan, prison tattoos peeking out from the short sleeves of his jailhouse-issue blue shirt. His film The Maple Leaf , made behind bars, is competing for best narrative short film – a category only for currently or formerly incarcerated filmmakers. Pagan, 37, was a teen when he committed his crime. He expressed hopes his new skill of directing movies could one day offer “a pipeline to Hollywood, to employment.” o Prison film fest brings healing to US jailhouse’s inmates

An aerial view shows the San Quentin Rehabilitation Centre in San Quentin, California. – ALL PICS FROM AFP

“Right now, I’m just doing the work and rehabilitating myself. Part of the story of The Maple Leaf is about guys like me,” he said. Second chance The oldest prison in California, San Quentin was for decades a maximum-security facility that hosted the nation’s biggest death row – and a famous concert by Johnny Cash in 1969. It has become a flagship for California penal reform, and no longer carries out executions. Rehabilitation programmes include a media centre where prisoners produce a newspaper, podcasts and films. The projects are intended to provide employable skills, as 90% of inmates will one day be released. The festival, launched last year, offers inmates a chance to meet mainstream filmmakers from the outside. Founder Cori Thomas, who is also a playwright and screenwriter, had volunteered at the prison for years, and wanted a way to show her Hollywood peers the “exceptional work” being made in San Quentin. “The only way would be for them

San Quentin inmate Sifuentes, who plays an inmate contemplating suicide in the short film Warning Signs . Though it did not win, the movie – about a self-help group in which prisoners tackle guilt and shame – won high praise from a jury including director Celine Song (Past Lives) and actor Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy) .

Dressed in their prison blues, inmates watch a screening on day two of the San Quentin Film Festival at San Quentin Rehabilitation Centre.

after the prisoners are released. “If we send people out without having resolved their trauma and having no skill set, no degree, no schooling, they’re more likely to reoffend and cause more victims,” he said. Grateful Even rehabilitation-focused prisons such as San Quentin remain dangerous places. “We’ve had assaults where nurses have been hurt by patients. It’s a prison... it comes with the territory,” said Kevin Healy, who trains staff at San Quentin. Overhead circling the courtyard is a narrow walkway, where guards with deadly rifles can appear at the first sign of unrest. But it is a far cry from the terrifying maximum-security prisons where Pagan and Sifuentes began their sentences, and where Sifuentes nearly died after being stabbed. At least on this sunny festival day, as incarcerated musicians play cheerfully in the courtyard, that violence feels temporarily at bay. “Honestly, I hate to say I’m grateful to be at this prison. But in a sense I am,” said Pagan.

to come in here to see it,” she realised. After two successful editions, the festival will expand to a women’s prison in 2026. Warning signs San Quentin’s film programme is also a chance for inmates to confront their often brutal pasts. Miguel Sifuentes, 27 years into a life sentence for an armed robbery in which his accomplice killed a police officer, said creating short film Warning Signs was “a transformative healing experience.” He plays an inmate contemplating suicide. Total strangers in prison who watched the film later approached him to open up about their own suicidal thoughts, he said. “It really wasn’t like acting – it was just speaking from a real place of pain,” Sifuentes said. Prison warden Chance Andes told AFP cathartic activities such as filmmaking and events such as the festival help “reduce the violence and the tension within the walls.” Inmates who cause fights or otherwise break prison rules temporarily lose their chance to participate. Andes said these lessons resonate

Guests arrive to attend the San Quentin Film Festival at the notorious prison.

Prison warden Chance Andes (top centre) poses on the red carpet with guests and inmates during the San Quentin Film Festival at San Quentin Rehabilitation Centre.