A new film explores the his­to­ry of mass incar­cer­a­tion and house music in America

In 1980s Amer­i­ca, mass incar­cer­a­tion was gain­ing momen­tum. Due to the intro­duc­tion of New York City’s Rock­e­feller Drug Laws – which could imprison some­one for a min­i­mum of 15 years for sell­ing two ounces of cannabis – and the mon­eti­sa­tion of prison labour, dis­ad­van­taged neigh­bour­hoods found them­selves pounced upon by cops ready to wield their new pow­ers and sling more indi­vid­u­als behind bars. Con­se­quent­ly, the ​“land of the free” is now the world’s largest jail­er with two mil­lion peo­ple behind bars.

As com­mu­ni­ties found them­selves ripped apart by heavy sen­tenc­ing, the increase in bod­ies locked up behind con­crete walls unusu­al­ly coin­cid­ed with the lib­er­a­tion of bod­ies across dance floors and the rise of house music. While one por­tion of this oppressed com­mu­ni­ty was sev­ered from soci­ety anoth­er was respond­ing by build­ing a space of inclu­siv­i­ty, free­dom and trans­for­ma­tion. And the endur­ing con­nec­tion between the black, lat­inx and queer com­mu­ni­ties that birthed house music and the bat­tle to abol­ish the prison indus­tri­al com­plex is high­light­ed in Turn­er Prize-nom­i­nat­ed artist Phil Collins’ doc­u­men­tary Bring Down the Walls.

Collins ini­tial­ly noticed the link dur­ing his time pro­duc­ing music with inmates at Sing Sing Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty in New York, where ses­sions reg­u­lar­ly returned to the canon of house clas­sics. After his prison per­mis­sions were revoked, Collins decid­ed to car­ry his work­shop par­tic­i­pants’ pas­sion for house music back over the wall into the com­mu­ni­ty and in 2018 estab­lished Bring Down the Walls, a com­mu­nal space that embraced cre­ativ­i­ty and campaigning.

Dur­ing day­light, the project in Manhattan’s Court Dis­trict was a school of work­shops, talks and advi­so­ry ser­vices, out­lin­ing how to insti­gate change in the inflex­i­ble prison sys­tem. But once the sun set, the venue trans­formed into a night­club, blast­ing out house favourites with vocals by for­mer incar­cer­at­ed indi­vid­u­als and pro­duc­tion by con­tem­po­rary, elec­tron­ic musicians.

Rather than focus­ing on Collins and his back­sto­ry, the doc­u­men­tary blends shots from Bring Down the Walls with street footage, mate­r­i­al from Sing Sing Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty and archive pho­tog­ra­phy. The result is a hope­ful mon­tage of provoca­tive thought, heart-break­ing anec­dotes and grace­ful dance moves.

Talk­ing heads with impor­tant titles are eschewed in favour of for­mer inmates, who are afford­ed as much space to speak as the pro­fes­sion­als offer­ing big-pic­ture per­spec­tive on the jus­tice sys­tem. Con­ver­sa­tions cap­tured at Sing Sing’s music class blend with pre­sen­ta­tions at the com­mu­ni­ty project and dis­cus­sions about sen­tenc­ing and sur­veil­lance bridge the barbed wire divide.

The qui­et still­ness of shots from the prison con­trast direct­ly with the activists at Bring Down the Walls who are infused with life, sway­ing under the pink light of the dance floor. Inter­spersed between infor­ma­tive lec­tures on the his­to­ry of house or the legal­i­ty of dis­crim­i­nat­ing against ex-offend­ers are lib­er­at­ing musi­cal per­for­mances from pre­vi­ous inmates. A 70-year-old man who has ​“spent more time in prison than at home” belts out ​“You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone” to a packed dance floor of cheers and ele­vat­ed palms.

The joy and ener­gy that emanates from the gyrat­ing limbs and relaxed smiles removes the soci­etal divides between those that have and have not offend­ed, open­ing up the pos­si­bil­i­ty that per­haps this jug­ger­naut of a prison sys­tem could be dis­man­tled after all.

Bring Down the Walls is part of Sheffield Doc/Fest’s offi­cial pro­gramme and is avail­able to watch on Doc/​Fest Selects.