"For Kiana Calloway, the brick wall became a green screen for theatrical performances and football games. For Sunny Jacobs, meditation brought her to a lush patch of grass and her children's rooms at bedtime. And for Frank De Palma, 22 years without a mirror meant he didn't recognize the man who finally emerged from the 6 x 9 foot cell."
"Solitary confinement is the practice of detaining a person in a cell for nearly or all of 24 hours. This type of segregation cuts off contact with others and sometimes lasts for days, weeks, or, as we see in the film, decades. The U.S. imprisons more of its population than nearly every other country and is the only Western nation to allow the practice, which the U.N. recognizes as torture and has sought to outlaw. A 2023 report estimated that 122,000 children and adults are held in solitary confinement in U.S. facilities each day."
"Even today, I wake up with cold sweats, having nightmares of screams, howling from the cells next to me. Or hearing a guy that's mentally ill four cells down from me that's beating and screaming and hollering for a security officer to come down there and give him some type of medical treatment, only to get beaten," Calloway says."
An animated rotoscoped short recounts three people's collective 36 years in solitary confinement and the coping strategies they used to survive. Kiana Calloway used imagination, Sunny Jacobs used meditation to visit memories, and Frank De Palma lost recognition of his own face after decades without a mirror. Solitary confinement confines individuals for nearly all of each day and can persist for days, weeks, or decades. The United States imprisons a larger share of its population than nearly every other country and remains the only Western nation allowing prolonged solitary, which the U.N. considers torture. The film uses claustrophobic framing, aerial views, and grayscale animation to evoke isolation and psychological torment.
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