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Directed by Mark Landsman Produced by Mark Landsman (for WITNESS) Genre Runtime: 4 min Release Date: April 2008 Send to Friends |
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Plot Outline
The teens of the Books Not Bars movement demand that education be the government’s priority, now and in the future.
Awards
Winner of the Criminal Justice Award
Filmmaker Notes
More About Books Not Bars from WITNESS
Public spending to support increased incarceration is booming while spending for public education has dwindled dramatically. Youth of color are being discriminated against in their neighborhoods, in their schools, and in the courts, where an African-American youth is 48 times more likely to be convicted of a drug offense than a white peer. In response to these critical issues, WITNESS joined together with Columbia University Law School’s Human Rights Institute and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights to produce Books Not Bars, a documentary about the inspiring youth-led movement against the growth of the prison industry in the U.S. After two years of collaborative campaigning with the Ella Baker Center and other groups the “Super-Jail for Kids” proposal in Alameda County, California, which was on the verge of becoming one of the biggest per capita youth jails in the country, was derailed in part by the efforts of the BOOKS NOT BARS campaign.
Books Not Bars premiered at the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa in August of 2001. It premiered on the WITNESS website in April 2002 as a Rights Alert and was introduced by hip-hop musician Q-Tip, with links provided for viewers to take action. Major screenings were sponsored by the Colombia Law School Human Rights Institute with additional facilitated screenings at NYU, Bard College and Sarah Lawrence College. The video has also been used in classrooms across the United States, screened at meetings of philanthropists, and excerpts have been included at venues such as the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in London 2003.
WITNESS has worked with the co-producers of the project to distribute the video widely to activists and other key players in the debate around the growing presence of the prison-industrial complex. To that end, the Open Society Institute supported a national mailing to 300 youth activists and educators offering the video and lesson plans at a reduced price in 2002. WITNESS also distributed Books Not Bars to more than 250 business and nonprofit leaders and philanthropists to raise their awareness of the profit motive in the drive for expansion of the prison-industrial complex. The video and accompanying lesson plans developed by Street Law will be distributed to 300 public libraries beginning in March 2004 through the National Video Resources Human Rights Video Project.
Find more films on Criminal Justice from MediaRights.
FILMMAKER BIO
Mark Landsman, Producer/ Director
Mark Landsman is an independent producer, director and writer whose work is largely focused on documentaries and youth-based programming. He is also the producer and director of Peace of Mind, a feature-length documentary on coexistence and reconciliation among a group of Palestinian and Israeli teenagers and Postcards from Peje, a project he developed in conjunction with WITNESS and Balkan Sunflowers in the Kosovarian city of Peje.
Postcard from Peje was presented at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and premiered at the 2001 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at Lincoln Center. Landsman has produced several films programs for PBS and local PBS stations in San Francisco and New York, the Disney Channel, and in conjunction with SHOWTIME Networks, Inc. and PENCIL, he helped design and develop the first New York City Youth Video Festival, open to all public high school students. You can reach him at markolands@yahoo.com.
WITNESS , Executive Producer
WITNESS, a partner of MediaRights, is a human rights organization rooted in the principle that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” WITNESS strengthens local activists by giving them video cameras and training in production and advocacy. Since their founding nearly 12 years ago, they have worked with over 200 groups in over 50 countries to right wrongs and end impunity for human rights violators. http://www.witness.org.