The Inthrive Film Festival showcases films made by and featuring people who have survived incarceration so they can tell their stories about life behind bars on their terms. Now in its third year, the festival started in Richmond and branched out to other parts of the country, with screenings this week in the Shenandoah Valley. David Smith started Inthrive following his own incarceration. WMRA’s Calvin Pynn asked him how that experience led him to create the film festival.
DAVID SMITH: So, I'd spent several years incarcerated myself back in the early 2000s. And I got out and look, I had a job when I got out. I had housing when I got out. I didn't really have any issues just because of my background. However, as I moved on, I began to see more and more people impacted by incarceration in these really negative ways. And then it happened to me. I'd been at Allianz, a big international insurance company, for almost three years. And out of the blue, when one of the co-workers found out I'd been arrested and served time, they let me go on the spot, even though I was in the middle of running an international product launch for them. That just, it really opened my eyes. And I've been doing some political advocacy at the time as well. And I'd gotten to know a Republican legislator who has more prison beds in his district than any other delegate in Virginia. And he agreed with some of the stuff I was doing. But he said to me: "look, David, I know what you're doing is right. But if I vote for this, my constituents will think that I'm opening up the doors to the prisons and all the rapists and murderers are going to come out. I know that's not true. You know that's not true. I need you to change their minds." So that began to get me to think about this idea of: how do we change hearts and minds? And if popular culture, popular media, TV and podcasts have created this false narrative about incarceration, why not counter that false narrative with an authentic narrative for people who have actually survived incarceration themselves? Now, it took me a couple years to get from that point to starting the film festival, but that was really the genesis of the film festival. How do we change hearts and minds about what it means to be incarcerated? And the best way to do that is to give space to people who have been incarcerated to share their stories on their terms.
WMRA: So how did these folks who had survived incarceration, how did they get into filmmaking?
SMITH: There are several prisons around the country, most notably San Quentin out in California, that have media and film production studios on site, where you actually have people going into the prisons and teaching folks how to create media content. So, we've had a good amount of films and filmmakers coming out of that San Quentin place. There's also an organization called Represent Justice, and what they do is they work, among other things, they work with formerly incarcerated advocates to use film to tell their story to support their advocacy work. And then there are just people who have. gotten into this filmmaking space on their own. There's a fellowship called the Right of Return fellowship, which was based out of New York City. And we've gotten several films from fellowship graduates there. And those are all artists who have really learned this filmmaking craft post-incarceration but have used it to tell stories that they want to tell.
WMRA: Could you tell me some about the films that we'll expect to see this week?
SMITH: I'm really excited about the program we have set up for the Shenandoah Valley, because outside of Richmond, this has actually turned into our biggest film festival that we have put on. The most days, the most venues, the most films. It's absolutely incredible. So, a few things, a few key ones I want to hit. Our very first morning we kick off at, well actually we have a little event at the VMRC (Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community), but our first big public event is at Eastern Mennonite [University]. And this is going to be live stream. This is their convocation and we're going to be showing the film Two Wolves. It's a short film. It's from our very first season, but it's a really powerful film because it helps to contextualize what it means to have been incarcerated. And it really reframes it. So instead of thinking of all the negative things, it helps people see all the incredible folks who have been incarcerated and have gone on to wonderful places in life. And that's going to be live streamed through Eastern Mennonite on their YouTube channel, Eastern Mennonite University. So, you can find that over there. And we're going to have also live streamed a fireside chat with a local incarceration survivor who's doing incredible things, Romeo. And so, Romeo and I are going to have a discussion about what does this mean in the Shenandoah Valley to be an incarceration survivor? What is it like to have gotten out of prison and to now be navigating life post-incarceration in the Harrisonburg-Staunton area?
WMRA: Now for the films that we have on the agenda, were these made by people in Virginia, in the Valley? How exactly does that work?
SMITH: This is all from around the country. We actually have a team of incarceration surviving artists and filmmakers that are judges for the film festival. And we get a bunch of submissions every year, just like the Virginia Film Festival would, for example, get a bunch of submissions every year, and then these judges will go through and say: “these are the films that we think are the best. They really have high quality filmmaking and they really are sharing the message that we're looking to share. Looking at the films that we have that we'll be showing, there is one film with a - actually there are two films with Virginia tie-ins. One of them is Where's My Coffee Cup? And that will be screened on Saturday morning at the Detwiler Auditorium over at the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community Center. It's based on the letters of a guy from Dillwyn [Correctional Center] here in Virginia. And it's basically about growing old in prison. But you never go into a prison. You hear his letters being read. And the way the director, Yehuda Sharim, he's actually a film professor out at UC Merced in California. The way he layers the different pieces of storytelling, I call it visual jazz. And it's just, it takes you into the emotional experience of growing old in prison without ever going behind a prison wall. And that's just a powerful film. Another film we're showing is going to be at Bridgewater on Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. is called Weekend Visits. And that is a short that was filmed at one of the women's prisons here in Virginia. And it's very cinema veritas, I think that's how you say it, and follows a mom and her son during a visitation at the prison where they have an actual, like a little visitation house where she and her son can kind of have a somewhat normal time. And it really just kind of shines a light on that experience of both the mother, the child, and the child's caretaker. Just kind of brings all of those pieces together in a very beautiful, minimalistic way.
WMRA: So, based on your own experience and the experience of others that you've worked with in organizing this festival, what does it mean to survive incarceration?
SMITH: That was a term that I actually coined because I thought it was important for us to shift the understanding of what it meant to be incarcerated. And look, I came from a middle class, upper middle class white background where incarceration was this horrible, shameful thing. I get out of prison, and I moved to Richmond and I'm living in economically depressed, overly policed neighborhoods because that's where I can afford to live at the time. And I see people there celebrating when folks get out of incarceration and they have coming home parties. And what I discovered was when you're coming from this privileged background, incarceration is a punishment because you didn't follow the rules that have allowed you to live this privileged life. But if you're coming from a background where you just haven't had that privilege, where you don't have that economic opportunity or really a lot of those economic advantages, then they see prison, folks in my communities while I live there, will see prison as if you defeated the processes that were supposed to hold you down. So, there was an actual celebratory side of getting out of prison. And I wanted to find a way of communicating that while also helping people would understand that prison is not a healing place. It's a place that you need to survive. And I mean that in an institutional sense, that the institution of incarceration is not something that's there to heal society. So, by surviving that, you should recognize that you've really done something incredible. I remember I was reading an entrepreneur magazine when I was locked up, and it was talking about the best entrepreneurs are people who have survived some sort of personal trauma because they have that resilience. And I'm reading that, like, that describes every single person I'm locked up with right now. By using the phrase incarceration survivor, we were taking this part of life, which is seen as a negative across almost all of society and saying, how do we reframe that to recognize what you overcame to get back out and to and become the person you are today.
WMRA: The purpose of this festival is to give incarceration survivors an opportunity to reclaim and correct this narrative that's been portrayed negatively in popular media about having to serve time behind bars. I'm curious, have you met people over the past couple of years who haven't had that experience but were impacted by the films they had just seen?
SMITH: We were in Danville, Virginia a few months ago. And we were wrapping up our last panel discussion of the day. And during the Q&A time, this lady raises her hand. She's in the back of the auditorium. We were at Danville Community College. She's in the back of the auditorium and raises her hand. I call on her and she says: “look, I've never told anyone this before, but my son is incarcerated and I don't know what to do.” So, she came into that auditorium full of shame and fear. She saw some films. She heard a conversation from incarceration survivors and the question and answer that had been going on because she went from a place of isolation and fear to raising her hand, being brave and bold about what she was experiencing and being brought into a community. She wasn't just connected with resources that day. She was connected with people who had sons that are incarcerated from South Side Virginia. She was connected with advocates and allies from government officials all the way down to just other people living in her neighborhood that now she knew she could go to when she was struggling. That's really one of the beautiful things about this.
WMRA: The Inthrive Film Festival runs Wednesday through Saturday with screenings at Eastern Mennonite University, Mary Baldwin University, Bridgewater College and Virginia Mennonite retirement community. David, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about these films and the people behind them.
SMITH: I appreciate you taking the time for this interview today. And if you make it to one of our events, please come up and say hi to me.
