An urgent and uncommonly hopeful film about how to fight the prison system, and win.
The End of Isolation traces a journey across the United States, where formerly incarcerated people are reimagining justice and building a more humane future.
A busload of theater activists tours a play about solitary confinement through parts of the U.S. where incarceration is particularly inhumane, from Arkansas to Missouri to Pennsylvania. Despite entrenched racism and poverty, organizing and resistance in these places are vibrant and visionary.
Structured as a journey from oppression to resistance to victory, the film delves into the stories of formerly incarcerated activists, such as Inez Bordeaux, who was imprisoned at the Workhouse Jail in St. Louis for the “crime” of overdrawing $100 in unemployment benefits, and Kaleem Nazeem, who was put in solitary confinement in Arkansas for refusing to pick cotton. Inez was so radicalized by the inhumanity she experienced that she went on to lead the campaign that permanently shut down the jail. After decades of incarceration and deep personal reckoning, Kaleem emerged committed to healing his community and honoring the life he took.
At a time of rising fascism—and with it, expanding policing, imprisonment, and authoritarian control—this film refuses despair. Instead, it calls on audiences not only to witness resistance, but to join in it.
overdrawing $100 in unemployment benefits.”
First and foremost, we are humans. Many of us are humans who have experienced incarceration and the horrors of solitary confinement first-hand.
Together, we’re a team of organizers committed to creating an impact through transformative theater, transformative arts, and transformative justice. On the tour, we traveled, ate, worked, and lived together in a converted school bus for two months as we brought The BOX to communities across the US. Now, we are preparing to launch a documentary about our tour and the movement to transform the carceral state. This made us more than a team. We are friends. We are a chosen family. Together, we are strengthening a movement.
Individually we are professionals: award-winning authors, interdisciplinary artists, activists, actors, educators, chefs, and storytellers.
We are also artists, teachers, healers, mentors, parents, allies, founders, movement strategists and movement weavers. We change laws, save lives and shut down carceral facilities.
Get to know us! Check out our bios and explore our personal websites.
There are so many ways to be a part of the End of Isolation Tour and movement!
Help us make an impact by signing up for our newsletter and sharing the word about the End of Isolation Film.
We need to raise $85K to fund our impact campaign. Donations will be used to organize community screenings, compile a transformative toolkit, and more. Any amount helps!
Show your support and solidarity with ending isolation and beginning transformation. Rock our sweet EIT shirt.
The End of Isolation is launching a college tour, in which we will collaborate with schools across the country to provide access to the documentary as a narrative, advocacy, and educational tool. Please contact us at theendofisolationfilm.com and connect us with any professors, student organisations, or communities that you think will resonate and host a screening of the film!
Contact: theendofisolationfilm@gmail.com
In Memory of
With gratitude toward the people who shared their stories with us from solitary confinement, hugely contributing to this project:
And the survivors on the outside, who will never forget those they had to leave behind:
And family members:
Support the first stop of the End of Isolation’s College Tour!
Join us at the Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival in Atlanta, Georgia.
Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival, Atlanta, September 25, 3:30-4:30 PM.