On opposite sides of the Connecticut River and on separate tracks, filmmakers Signe Taylor and Bess O’Brien documented the challenges Twin State residents face within the criminal justice system and the hurdles they must clear to leave the experience behind.
And since the release of Taylor’s It’s Criminal in 2017 and O’Brien’s Coming Home in 2018, they’re continuing to find receptive audiences — including each other — for their depictions of community-based efforts to help people transcend substance abuse and the prison system.
“I think Signe and I both feel strongly about supporting people coming out of incarceration, coming out and being unable to integrate,” O’Brien, who lives and works in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, said recently. “What I learn over and over again is that if we don’t help them, they’ll probably offend again.”
O’Brien and Taylor both hear from a steady stream of community nonprofits, educators, public officials and others interested in criminal-justice reform who want to show their films. This winter, Vermont’s governor, attorney general, state’s attorneys and legislators all saw Coming Home, about five ex-offenders adjusting to civilian life through the restorative-justice program Circles of Support & Accountability (COSA).
Meanwhile, some of the women who participated in It’s Criminal: A Tale of Bridging the Divide continue to join Taylor at screenings to talk about what led them into the Sullivan County House of Corrections in Unity. She had filmed them writing and staging plays about their struggles, in a collaboration with Dartmouth College students taking a course taught by professors Ivy Schweitzer and Pati Hernandez “Prisoner, Women and Performance” and with Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater.
“When we brought it to Colby-Sawyer College last year, it started with an audience of maybe 25 people,” Taylor, who lives in Norwich, said recently. “They started texting their friends to come and see the film. The audience doubled as it went along. During the discussion at the end, we had people sitting in a circle, just talking. It was very personal.”
In the course of spreading the word about Sullivan County’s Transitional Reentry and Inmate Life Skills (TRAILS) program in the two years since the release of It’s Criminal, several of the key participants continue to spread their wings. During the L.A. Women’s International Film Festival, former inmate Charlotte Rankin, who Taylor said “had never left New England before, had never been on a plane,” immediately noticed people living on the streets around the neighborhood of the AirBnB where Taylor and Rankin were staying.
“Charlotte engaged with all the people she met, asking them about their journeys,” Taylor recalled. “It made me realize the fear that I bring in reaction to people I’m unfamiliar with. It reminded me that I’ve got to open my mind, open my heart.”
O’Brien experienced a similar awakening after the Vermont Department of Corrections’ office of restorative justice invited her to follow five recovering addicts through the COSA process of weekly meetings with community volunteers.
“I learned a lot more than I ever imagined about the challenges of coming out of prison, getting your feet on the ground, finding a community that’s supportive,” she said. “And I found that the people working with these persons grow themselves, get to know people they ordinarily wouldn’t hang out with. A lot of stigmas get put to the side.”
So far, O’Brien added, the five subjects — three men and two women who all struggled with substance abuse — seem to be adjusting well to life after incarceration. The last time O’Brien saw Tara, a White River Junction woman who had done time for selling drugs, she “had completely turned her life around,” O’Brien said. “She has a job, is engaged to a wonderful man and is clean and sober.”
Tara’s story and the others in Coming Home were a revelation to Taylor when O’Brien screened her film for White River Indie Films’ 365 festival at the Briggs Opera House in January.
“After the movie and the panel discussion, I said, ‘Thank you!’ ” Taylor recalled recently. “Bess really shined a light on the subject. What an amazing program. … Vermont is really leading the way. That’s the kind of program people need. They need the follow-up. They need the community care and love. I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Wow! New Hampshire needs to do this.’ ”
O’Brien encounters similar responses around Vermont.
“The first reaction is usually, ‘Wow: I didn’t know this existed!’ ” O’Brien said. “The second is, ‘This improves our community by keeping people out of prison.’ And 3: ‘How do I volunteer?’ ”
Taylor welcomes O’Brien’s company in what she sees as a mission to create change in the justice system, and in hearts and minds.
“You want to build your chorus,” Taylor said. “It’s always nice to meet another soldier in the field.”
Signe Taylor and Bess O’Brien both welcome invitations to present their films, when possible with some of the subjects along for post-screening discussions. To schedule a screening of, or to order a copy of,