Film Screening: Dhamma Brothers
“The Dhamma Brothers”
2010 Ethics Film Series
March 23, 2010
An overcrowded Alabama maximum-security prison is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Post-film discussion led by Ron Cavanaugh (treatment director at the Alabama Dept. of Corrections), Jenny Phillips (the film’s writer and producer), and Gary Hetzel (the Donaldson Correctional Facility’s warden.
Over 200 people came to the screening. Listen to Ron Cavanaugh, treatment director of Alabama’s Dept. of Corrections, and filmmaker Jenny Phillips talk about how inmates found peace in prison on WUNC’s “The State of Things.”
See the trailer: http://www.dhammabrothers.com/
Synopsis:
(Andrew Kukura, Jenny Phillips, & Anne Marie Stein, 2008, 76 min, USA, in English, Color, 35mm)
An overcrowded maximum-security prison, the end of the line in Alabama’s prison system, is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Behind high security towers and a double row of barbed wire and electrical fence dwells a host of convicts who may never again know life in the outside world. But for some of these men, a spark is ignited when theirs becomes the first maximum-security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana retreat, an emotionally and physically demanding program of silent meditation lasting ten days.
The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of the prison inmates at Donaldson Correctional Facility as they enter into this arduous and intensive program.
Post-film discussion led by Ron Cavanaugh, Jenny Phillips, and Gary Hetzel. Cavanaugh is the treatment director at the Alabama Dept. of Corrections. He has been an advocate for the meditation program and he worked at the Donaldson Correctional Facility. Phillips is the film’s writer and producer. Gary Hetzel is the warden at the Donaldson Correctional Facility.
The 2010 Ethics Film Series was cosponsored by the Arts of the Moving Image Program and the Center for Documentary Studies.
