Incarcerated men in Alabama took huge risks to send hidden footage of their dangerous and inhumane living conditions to documentary filmmakers, and what they uncovered is the focus of the film The Alabama Solution, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Filmmakers Andrew Jarecki, best known for The Jinx and Capturing the Friedmans, and Charlotte Kaufman, became interested in Alabama’s prison system back in 2019. They initially got access to one of the state’s high-security prisons through a chaplain during a revival meeting in the prison yard. It was there that prisoners started pulling them aside and sharing the shocking truths about life behind bars: forced labor, rampant drugs, violence, intimidation, retaliation, and unexplained deaths that prison officials had swept under the rug.
Their investigation eventually led them to two incarcerated activists, Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council (known by his prison name Kinetik Justice), who had been working for years to expose the corruption and horrendous conditions inside the Alabama prison system. With the help of contraband cell phones, Ray and Council secretly fed the filmmakers footage of what was really going on.
At the film’s premiere, Council was actually listening in on the conversation from prison. Kaufman held the phone to the microphone so Council could speak directly to the audience.
The screening was an emotional event, with some family members of those featured in the film attending. One was Sandy Ray, the mother of Steven Davis, a man who died in 2019 at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility. His body was found beaten so badly his face was unrecognizable. The official story from prison officials was that Davis was killed in self-defense after refusing to drop a weapon, but the prisoners who were there tell a completely different story.
Alelur “Alex” Duran, who spent 12 years in prison in New York, also helped produce the film. Jarecki pointed out that they wouldn’t have been able to take on the project without someone who understood the prison system firsthand.
The documentary also explores Alabama’s long-standing practice of using prison labor for private companies like Burger King and Best Western—an issue that The Associated Press spent years investigating. This labor force, which costs companies a fraction of what they’d pay for regular employees, has generated more than $250 million for the state since 2000, mostly through deductions from prisoners’ meager paychecks. Meanwhile, parole rates have dropped dramatically in recent years.
While The Alabama Solution is still in its early days, its impact is already being felt, including a class-action labor lawsuit sparked by the film’s revelations. The movie is set to have a theatrical release before debuting on HBO sometime this year, although exact dates are still in the works.
