GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A documentary by a local filmmaker is showcasing the transformative journey of incarceration, with the hope of inspiring a path forward from prison to a second chance in society.
Nate Roels says, oftentimes people let what they see blind them from seeing past those mistakes. It’s what inspired him to create the documentary Behind Our Walls.
"Not only are we looking behind the walls of prison, but we're examining our own walls that we have up against prisoners, and how we view them,” explained Roels.
In the film, he shows those walls coming down and what prisoners are able to achieve when they’re given a second chance. The film follows eight students at the Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, who are enrolled in the Calvin Prison Initiative; a program helping prisoners earn a bachelor's degree, regain hope, and transform their lives.
“In creating this film, I really saw a lot of the challenges, difficulties, and injustices that occur in our system,” said Roels. “I saw and learned about the ways that our system was just really punitive. It's really just throwing people in and punishing them as hard as we can typically,”
Nick Nichols knows about those challenges all too well. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison at just 21-years-old.
“During that experience, you sit there in prison and the years go by and you wish that you could do something with your life, and it seems like everyone's life is progressing but yours,” said Nichols.
However, the Calvin Prison Initiative was his guiding light during those dark times. He believes it’s not just about learning, but instead is a transformative process that allows people to go to college and become a better version of themselves. It’s a process that he says works inside of prisons too.
Nichols graduated from the program and was eventually released from prison. Today, he serves as the Program Director for the Calvin Prison Initiative. It’s a second chance rarely given to people who share his past.
The director hopes viewers will see prisoners in a different light and worthy of getting it right.
“These are people that deserve a second chance, who deserve opportunities to be able to better themselves, to improve their character, to give back,” said Roels.
The documentary Behind Our Walls recently won the Best Documentary prize at the Grand Rapids Film Festival. You can catch a screening of the film on Thursday at Calvin University at 7pm. You can purchase tickets here.
For more information on the Calvin Prison Initiative, click here.