“Tehachapi,” JR’s poignant documentary about prisoners seeking redemption in California

Fourth documentary by the street artist photographer, “Tehachapi” is the name of the high-security Californian prison where JR captured the testimonies of prisoners sentenced, minors, to heavy sentences since their adolescence.

Rather than yet another documentary on the prison environment, JR films a human adventure. It is a subject slipped into the hollow of the ear by Agnès Varda, with whom he had co-directed Village faces (2016). Tehachapi releases in theaters Wednesday June 12, 2024.

Artist, JR asserts the relationship between creation and society, in its human dimension. Tehachapi traces this process in progress, as well as its result.

Portrait photographer, JR reveals in Tehachapi the motivations and the development of an artistic project whose objective was to create a photographic fresco representing twenty-eight prisoners, while involving them in its development, including its collage in the prison courtyard. The concept did not stop at this stage, but continued with the posting of testimonies from each of them online. The key word that emerges from the words collected by the artist is “change”.

The reintegration of these criminals incarcerated for murder in the context of gang wars is the central project of the Tehachapi prison administration. Renowned for being one of the most violent prisons in the United States, it is governed by four levels of dangerousness for prisoners. Mission accomplished, since as JR himself explains: “Of the 28 prisoners who participated in the first bonding, only three remain incarcerated today at the maximum security level. Among the others, half were transferred to lower levels , and the other half were released, even though some of them had been sentenced to life without parole.”

To complete his words, JR adds that “art may not be able to change the world, but I understood that art could change lives.” All the filmed testimonies evoke astonishment at the interest that the stories of these prisoners aroused among Internet users. Thus the desire for change expressed by all the participants overlaps with JR’s approach which turned out to be a synchronous response, arriving at the right time, as if it materialized, or participated in, their quest.

A man of images, JR confirms his talent as a filmmaker, choosing a scope format (wide screen) to film the claustrophobic prison environment, a place of all promiscuity. As if this open format expressed this freedom. Far from any aesthetic desire, the filming transmits the space of freedom opened up by the artist’s experience in this prison courtyard, and the communication which developed between prisoners and guards. Rather than a documentary on Tehachapi prison, JR is about men who unanimously recognize their error, accept their conviction, all on the path to their redemption. A human story.

Gender : Documentary
Director : J.R.
Country : France / Switzerland
Exit : 12 June 2024
Distributer : MK2
Synopsis: The United States represents 4.2% of the world’s population and 20% of the world’s prisoners. In October 2019, the artist JR obtained unprecedented authorization to intervene in one of the most violent high security prisons in California: Tehachapi. Some inmates are serving life sentences there for crimes committed when they were minors. Through his fresco project, JR brings together the portraits and stories of these men, offering a different look at the prison environment and bringing a message of hope and possible redemption.