Inaugural San Quentin Film Festival and The Just Trust Aim for Convergence of Justice Reform and the Arts

This weekend found two historical events take place in the San Francisco Bay Area with a two-day event celebrating and positioning incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people into the arts and the world of filmmaking.

On October 10, the first annual event at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, which celebrates the work of current and formerly incarcerated filmmakers, found itself in a unique situation as B. “Raheem” Ballard’s 10-minute short film Dying Alone, about the quest for terminally ill incarcerated men to spend their final months outside prison walls, won big at the inaugural event. While the film made its world premiere at the prison chapel, Ballard was appearing before the parole board. At the awards ceremony, festival co-director and former San Quentin inmate Rahsaan “New York” Thomas told the crowd, “Raheem has been found suitable for parole.” The audience of nearly 300 attendees gave Ballard a standing ovation as he was able to make it to the stage to accept his award after the hearing. The festival also has an online component which runs through Tuesday, October 15.

Just over a week prior, at a hearing on September 30, Sing Sing co-star Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez, who had served over 20 years for a crime he didn’t commit, was granted a motion filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to vacate Velazquez’s conviction and dismiss the original indictment. Velazquez was falsely convicted of the 1998 murder of Albert Ward, a retired police detective, in New York City. Prosecutors said newly found DNA evidence eventually pointed to another person as the killer.

On October 11, in conjunction with the San Quentin Film Festival, The Just Trust hosted A Day of Film & Justice featuring a special double feature screening of A24’s Sing Sing and Netflix’s Kerry Washington-produced Daughters, with an intimate lunch and panel conversation with special guests Washington, Angela Patton, the filmmakers and cast of Sing Sing (director Greg Kwedar with stars Clarence Maclin and Sean ‘Dino’ Johnson), The Just Trust Chief Innovation Officer Ken Oliver, Larry Miller — chairman of the Jordan Brand, and board member of The Just Trust. 

A Day of Film & Justice showcased these two films and highlighted the organizations and individuals behind them. The Just Trust has also funded the Daughters Impact Campaign – Girls For A Change, and the Sing Sing Impact Campaign as part of its ongoing narrative change initiative to raise money for justice-centered storytelling projects across the board.

The Just Trust is a nonprofit organization and one of the leading supporters of criminal justice reform and public safety innovation in the United States. Its core activities are grant-making; advocacy and philanthropic advising; public opinion and messaging research; and narrative change. Founded in 2021 with an historic $350 million, five-year seed gift from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, it has since moved more than $100 million in funding and additional resources to groups working across political and ideological spectrums – in red, blue and purple states – to safely shrink the footprint of the justice system in our daily lives, and to build something better.

Since it began grant-making in March 2022, The Just Trust’s partners have helped pass, block, or implement nearly 250 pieces of legislation in 39 states across the country. A list of The Just Trust partners can be found here.