Concrete, Steel & Paint

Concrete, Steel & Paint T. Heriza (Co-Director, Co-Producer) & C. L. Burstein (Co-Director, Co-Producer). (2009). Concrete, Steel & Paint [Documentary]. United States of America: New Day Films. ISBN-978-1-57448-250-8.The United States incarcerates more people than any nation on earth. We are a nation that nurtures the cycle of crime and punishment through the ongoing construction of more and more prisons. On the other side of these impenetrable walled warehouses are families, friends, communities, and victims of crime, abuse, and addiction. Each element in the cycle of crime and punishment is part of a larger complex picture filled with ambiguity, empathy, prejudice, abuse, addiction, guilt, remorse, violence, emptiness, and resilience.The documentary Concrete, Steel & Paint shares a moving story about the role of murals, storytelling, image making, and the use of the arts to bear witness to humanity's capacity for resilience, forgiveness, and understanding. Produced and directed by Cindy Burstein and Tony Heriza, this film weaves all of these disparate elements together in a dramatic story about the creation of murals by the men at the State Correctional Institution in Graterford, Pennsylvania (SCI-Graterford), in collaboration with the famous Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia.Rich and visually textured street scenes and urban vignettes of Philadelphia contrast starkly with views of the bare walls and guard towers of SCI-Graterford, cell blocks, the yard, and intimate spaces within one of the largest and oldest prisons in the United States. There are approximately 4,000 men housed at Graterford under maximum-security conditions. Graterford is a small city revolving around the economy of crime and punishment.Shooting documentaries about difficult subjects such as crime is hardly easy; negotiating to bring a camera Into a maximum-security prison to film candid moments over months of work, meetings, and studio sessions is miraculous. Through candid interviews, the viewer is taken inside and outside the walls of the prison to see the complex relationships between people who are victims of crime and people who have perpetrated criminal acts against others. We are led to see the interior lives of men who help create the murals that are one of the subjects of the film under the direction of two talented artists: Jane Golden, founder of the Mural Arts Project, and Cesar Viveros, the lead artist for this project. The incarcerated men featured in thefilm openly share their crimes, histories of abuse, and family lives with viewers.The filmmakers are invisible throughout the film; this makes viewers feel less of a sense of distance between themselves and the "subjects" of the film. Sometimes the viewer's visual space is so intimate that it is possible to count the hairs on the chin of some of the men who are interviewed in prison. Viewers see the inside of the cells In which these men spend their lives. The filmmakers portray the vulnerability of these men and the importance of art in their lives.These intimate interviews with men who are incarcerated are balanced by equally candid interviews with victims of violent crimes and victims' advocates. One powerful character within the documentary featured at various points is Victoria Greene. Her son, Emir, was shot and killed as a young man. Her presence within the film embodies a person who is resilient and open to the possibility that people can change in unexpected ways. Viewers hear the painful details of her life and the life of her daughter after the death of her son. Through these heartwrenching accounts, Burstein and Heriza have purposely placed viewers in an emotional quagmire. Viewers must face the question: Is it possible to have sympathy not only for the victims of violent crime but also for perpetrators?Jane Golden, one of America's premier mural artists, is the human bridge in the film between SCI-Graterford and residents in Philadelphia. …