Raymond Joshua, a young black performance poet, is arrested and imprisoned for a petty marijuana charge in a Washington, D.C. jail. Although the confining prison walls do little to shield him from danger, it is within those walls that Raymond establishes his identity, strength, and voice and meets a prison gang leader and a prison writing teacher, Lauren Bell. Bell inspires Raymond to use the power of creative expression to free himself from the struggles and demise of the Black male as another victim of the judicial system.
Acting
Saul Williams' volcanic spoken word performances.
Writing
Poetry that slaps harder than any action sequence.
Direction
Doc-drama hybrid blurs reality and performance.
Director
Marc Levin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Saul Williams was an actual slam poetry champion; Marc Levin discovered him at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and built the film around his raw talent.
Shot partially in DC's Lorton Prison with real inmates as extras — the blurred documentary-fiction line was intentional and legally unprecedented.
US
