Character Sketches
Ultimately, IN JUSTICE is about women who want justice:

• Kiesha is a prison guard who wants her child to have a safe home, a healthy family and a decent education.
• Marilyn is a prisoner who wants her child to have a safe home, a healthy family and a decent education.
• Maria is a prosecuting attorney who works on behalf of the federal government to incarcerate hundreds of women per year who want safe homes, healthy families and decent education.
• Jolene is a defense attorney who works for hundreds of women homes, healthy families and decent education, but are about to be caught up in the prison industrial complex.

Current Case Snapshot
Guadalupe Zuniga – North Carolina (# 0653282) is serving 18 years and three (3) months for living in a home with her eight (8) year old daughter and boyfriend who she did not know was trafficking cocaine.

The boyfriend served a much lighter sentence even though it was his drugs and despite the fact that he testified at her trial that she did not know what he was doing and had no knowledge that there was a stash of illegal drugs in their shared apartment.

By interweaving the real life stories of five women -one like Guadalupe Zuniga, of which there are many, one prison guard, one judge, prosecuting attorney and one defense attorney- In Justice will tell the real life stories of mandatory minimums’ impact on family, justice and hope.

Film Style

Employing intimate footage of each woman telling her story as she lives it, we will also introduce some experimental techniques like using well-known activists and formerly incarcerated individuals interviews’ audio over cinema-verite style footage of a prison guard going through her morning routine, including putting on her uniform, and preparing and grooming her daughter for school to convey the complex juxtaposition of the critical issues addressed in the documentary. In Justice is a story-driven documentary with sparse use of traditional documentary devices such as text, graphics and images on screen to convey some real-time statistics.

For example, split screen and/or quick jump cuts to show: While the prison guard gets ready for work, the accused is brought into court by armed guards, while each of their daughters gets dropped off at school.

Status of the Film

Currently in research and development, In Justice began as an idea through the blossoming of Brittany Ballard and Oriana Bolden’s relationship as co-teachers in an after-school program for low-income young women in documentary filmmaking.

At this time meetings are currently being scheduled with the primary organizational collaborators like Prison Activist Resource Center, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Drug Policy Alliance, The Sentencing Project, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, and ACLU. Initial planning meetings are to be held during the months of March and April 2009 to determine organizational involvement, artistic collaboration, time lines, strategic planning and shared visioning to move forward with this project. We are also scheduling interviews with criminal defense attorneys working in Richmond as well as mapping out a strategy for filming public hearings and trials of their clients.

As of April 2009 we have attained fiscal sponsorship through the San Francisco Film Society.