Since 2012, several correctional institutions in the Greater Montreal area have hosted the RIDM’s two-part cultural outreach program. The first visit involves a screening of a documentary from a previous edition of the festival, followed by a discussion with a member of the film’s crew. The second part is a critical writing workshop led by an expert facilitator.
These activities give inmates the opportunity to learn more about the different steps in making a film, but above all they expose them to interesting cultural material at a time when they are largely cut off from the world. The activities encourage the inmates to reflect, develop their critical faculties and open their minds to different ways of seeing the world.
From February through April 2017, the RIDM visited the Leclerc detention centre (women) in Laval and Bordeaux prison (men) in Montreal. The films screened were À la poursuite de la paix (Garry Beitel, 2015), Chez les géants (Aude Leroux-Lévesque and Sébastien Rist, 2016) and Angry Inuk (Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, 2016). Following are some of the pieces the inmates wrote during the writing workshop.
Read the texts: