Jail Time Records is many things.
First and foremost, Jail Time Records is a non-profit music label born in the New Bell Central Prison in Douala, Cameroon. But it’s also a film, a creative cooperative and, most importantly, a space where the microphone is in the hands of the unheard.
The documentary, which has won the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival’s Gamble-Paison Prize for Best International Feature Film, follows Stone, Transporteur and Empereur, all of whom were inmates at New Bell during the six year shoot. Directed by first time filmmakers Steve Happi and Dione Roach, the film “interweaves daily life, lyrical performance and staged musical interludes, tracing how incarcerated artists turn confinement into a collective language of expression.”
In 2018, Steve and Dione co-founded Jail Time Records, thereby establishing the first permanent recording studio inside an African prison. Since then, Jail Time Records has expanded into a vast collective of “musicians, producers and filmmakers working within and beyond prison walls.”
MNFF intern Natalie Richardson-Wymore spoke to the filmmaking duo behind the project from across the Atlantic; Natalie in Middlebury, Vermont, while Dione and Steve joined the call from Italy. During their discussion of Jail Time Records, they talked about music, collaboration, and how it feels to make home proud.
NRW: You’ve spoken about how you all at Jail Time Records see “music as an instrument of resistance” and that by uplifting unheard voices you “build pathways to change.” How does Jail Time Records (the documentary) aid and expand the mission?
DR: A big part of Jail Time Records is storytelling and bringing voices that are often unheard to the public. Also, shifting perceptions that the public might have on incarceration–creating a bridge between the world inside the prison and the world outside.
With Jail Time Records (the studio) we use a lot of storytelling through photography and social media, but the documentary was a chance to give an in-depth insight into the world of the guys and the world of the prison. The documentary shows the process of the music and how transformative it can be to take part in a project like that.
SH: And the visual part was always present, in music videos, in short films. Like those are movies too. So it was already part of the project in a way. The film is a part of our journey. We just decided to cut it to one hour and 30 minutes.
NRW: Sure. And speaking of that, I’m wondering when you guys thought of making a documentary? What was that first conversation like?
DR: It came up at various moments, quite soon after we started the project.
SH: And with the access we have, with the camera already inside prison for shooting music videos, it was, as she said, natural to record the process of the project. That’s how it took so many years. It took at least six or seven years.
NRW: Yeah, I wanted to ask about that actually. Filming over such a long period of time, I’m sure you guys were able to capture transition and evolution in the subjects of your film. Was it out of necessity, shooting for those six or seven years? Was it a creative choice?
DR: It was just life!
It took time to get involved with a production house, to find the right editor, and starting the edit–and the edit took a really long time–it was all so long and we were still inside the prison, working the whole time.
So we kept shooting, and that was great. It was the best thing possible because things happen in the lives of the principal characters, and things happen to us, and then during the edit you come up with other ideas as well. So you keep shooting.
…because things happen in the lives of the principal characters, and things happen to us, and then during the edit you come up with other ideas as well. So you keep shooting.”
NRW: What did the members of Jail Time think about participating in the film? Was it natural because you’d already spent so much time working together?
SH: I spent two years incarcerated at New Bell and we started the project while I was there. Dione was working for an NGO at the time, and she already had the idea for building a recording studio when we met. Before, I was already working as a music producer. And then I was in charge of the studio for two years. So everything felt natural.
Nothing was coming from the outside. Like it’s really a family business.
Dione was already doing music videos with the guys and shooting in the recording studio, so it felt really natural to say, “yeah, let’s record everything and figure out what we can do with the footage later.”
NRW: I want to talk to you guys about the edit. The whole documentary feels like the music videos you guys put out. You’ve been talking about the natural transition to documentary filmmaking. Did the editing style come about naturally too? What was that process like?
DR: That was a decision we made really early on before starting to shoot. We knew it was going to be a documentary musical, and that the videos would be part of the narration. It was a very conscious choice, and it also felt like a way to make the participants active. They participated in the film as more than just subjects, they had the stage as well.
NRW: Right. Could you talk more about that?
DR: We followed a lot more characters than the ones that made it into the final cut; people who came in and out over those six years. But, obviously, in the end, you have to really narrow it down and we were left with these three main characters because, together, we felt they had an interesting way of bringing out different aspects of humanity…different aspects of music as well.
…we were left with these three main characters because, together, we felt they had an interesting way of bringing out different aspects of humanity…different aspects of music as well.”
NRW: Has everyone been able to see the film? Like everyone who participated in it.
SH: The ones who are out have seen it now. But like, Empereur is still in jail and hasn’t. We can’t wait to go back and have the “real” world premiere. It’s gonna be in the prison of Guara. We can’t wait to go back.
NRW: It would be so exciting to get to share the film with everyone there.
SH: Yeah.
DR: Yeah, that would be amazing. We can’t wait. Yeah.
SH: Like the movie inside the movie!
DR: They’re already really excited about this film because the news went viral in Cameroon recently, and they all feel like superstars.
NRW: Tell me what the reception was like in Cameroon?
DR: People are really excited.
SH: And proud.
It’s putting Cameroon on the map again. We are known for football, for politics, for our geography for sure. But in terms of film, it’s really raw. So they are really proud. They are bragging, like, “yeah, it’s from Cameroon” You look at the comments on the Jail Time Records page: flag, flag, flag, flag.
And we are happy because most of the time you have positive feedback internationally, but for me particularly, even for Dione, it’s a joyful moment to see this type of reaction from home.
NRW: In the Jail Time Records studio, there’s a mural behind the computer, it has some figures on it and text along the bottom. Could you tell me a little about that?
DR: Yeah, we did that right at the beginning when we first put up the studio. I did it with a boy named Israel that was incarcerated at the time.
Originally I’m a painter, so we do a lot of painting projects inside the prison. In the documentary you see some scenes where the boys are painting the walls. We also did all of the walls outside death row. We did murals of a garden, and we called it “The Eden Project.” It was about recreating a natural world that these people might never see again. We wanted to bring a kind of that peace to that quarter of the prison.
NRW: I know you guys have been working on expanding Jail Time Records to other prisons. How has that been going?
DR: We have a recording studio in the prison of Wagadugu in Burkina Faso, and we have one in the prison of Goma in Cameroon, where we actually have a bigger space. We have visual art, and arts and crafts workshops as well.
SH: And we don’t work only inside prisons. We also do work in prevention programs, with youth in underserved communities. Sometimes it’s outside Guola in Cameroon. We also went to Brazil for one month. We’ve been experimenting with formerly incarcerated artists and their communities.
NRW: What’s the future for Jail Time?
DR: We have some very interesting collaborations coming soon. We can’t say it yet, but there’s something very exciting and international on the horizon.
SH: There’s more music coming; a soundtrack for the film, more EPs, more videos. Also, we are going on tour with formerly incarcerated artists. We are really, really excited about that. We already have dates in Berlin and Paris and we hope to have more dates–it’s really exciting.
For the guys, to travel around the world, seeing different cultures…it’s part of the education, you know. The mission is going on.
Jail Time Records will be playing on August 28th at 7:15pm, in Twilight Hall. To find tickets to the screening, visit the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival website or follow this link: https://mnff12.eventive.org/schedule/6a62792f2ae749d67e26ebc6/tickets