The Coolidge Corner Theatre

Filmmakers in attendance at Fri, May 16 & Sat, May 17 evening shows.

Big Screen show with filmmakers and post-film Q&A, Mon, May 19 @ 7:00

Donaldson Correctional Facility, situated in the Alabama countryside southwest of Birmingham, holds 1500 of the state's most dangerous criminals. Behind high security towers and a double row of barbed wire and electrical fence, dwells a host of convicts who will never see the light of day. But for some of these men, a spark was ignited. In January 2002, Donaldson Correctional Facility became the first maximum security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana retreat, an emotionally and physically demanding course of silent meditation lasting 10 days.

THE DHAMMA BROTHERS tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of 36 prison inmates who enter into this arduous and intensive program. It challenges assumptions about the nature of prisons as places of punishment rather than rehabilitation and raises the question: is it possible for these men, some of whom have committed horrendous crimes, to change?

dirs. Jenny Phillips, Anne Marie Stein and Andrew Kukura, documentary, 1h16m