For information regarding this project please contact D Stevens - 310 295 4666 for package. The budget is $9.2m inclusive of $420,000 for the first part 'stand-alone' documentary to be incorporated into the film.
American Gulag is a cross of Dog Day Afternoon meeting Dial M for Murder during a revolutionary uprising. It is based upon a story I wrote for West Magazine while in college. I had won the prestigious "Golden Mike" award for 'Best Documentary' while serving as Public Affairs Director at KPFK-Pacifica Radio. The documentary focused on conditions at Soledad Prison in California during the volatile 70's.
American Gulag’s story line is extremely real inclusive of events that has resulted according to Amnesty International the longest held political prisoner in the world. Multiple slayings during an escape attempt included the decapitation of a Superior Court judge, several prisoners killed and the wounding of a district attorney. The subsequent trial by the 'jail house lawyer' and a former Attorney General as the co-defense team became the focus of the world press and a cause célèbre for millions. These events fundamentally changed the way the U.S. prison system functioned and opened a new 'isolation' policy of high security - no contact warehousing for some inmates while others were funneled into an institutionalized 'slave' plantation utilizing cheap labor to enhance both corporate profits (private prisons) and the state's needs. Over three million inmates have made not only the morality but also the practicality as having the largest percentage of its population (China is second with one million incarcerated) in the world behind bars. It has also created an international blur as to what degree the growth of the US prison population is for punishment versus funneling a constant stream of cheap labor into the system with the greatest percentage for non-violent or drug related convictions.