Cruel and Unusual
HD
IMDb
From writer/director Vadim Jean, this extraordinary film has been eight years in the making – but that’s nothing compared to the 43 years that Albert Woodfox spent in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit… In 1972, a guard in Louisiana State’s Angola prison was stabbed to death. With no evidence, the authorities convicted Woodfox, alongside Herman Wallace and Robert King, who they saw as ‘black radicals’ because of their activism in fighting the prison’s terrible conditions. The sentence: life imprisonment, with solitary confinement added by Angola’s administration. Uncovering the remarkable story of the ‘Angola 3’ and their 40-year battle to right a terrible wrong, this impactful and timely documentary delivers a global call to end long-term solitary confinement in prisons. In a time of rising racial tension in the US, Cruel and Unusual is not just a documentary, it’s a call to action to end the overuse of long term solitary confinement in America’s prisons and is destined to join the ranks of West of Memphis and Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House Of God in the impact it could have in the United States, and potentially, the world. This must never happen again.
Cast
David Richmond-Peck, Bernadette Saquibal, Michelle Harrison, Monsour Cataquiz
Director(s)
Vadim Jean
Duration
1 x 90'
Genre(s)
Film, Feature Documentary, Crime, Social Issues
Year of Production
2014