On Thursday, March 7, the Rome International Film Festival and Berry College’s Office of Diversity and Belonging will host a night of film and discussion about how formerly incarcerated people can be successfully drawn back into their local community.
The event begins at 7 p.m. at the Seven Hills Fellowship building on Broad Street and is free thanks to a grant from South Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Tickets are limited and must be reserved on riffga.com or via the link on the Facebook event to guarantee a seat.
This film event is part of the Through a Different Lens series that RIFF and Berry have brought to the community over the past six months, designed to provide an opportunity for honest conversation about tough issues facing our region.
At 7 p.m. on March 7, the plan is to watch a series of short “Bridge Builder” films showing how various cities around the United States are supporting those reentering the community. Afterward, Dr. Sarah Allred, associate professor of sociology at Berry College, will lead a discussion with filmmaker Travis Wood and four members of our community who have extensive experience helping formerly incarcerated persons succeed after their release. Dr. Allred has participated in research and programming that helps incarcerated people obtain education in prison, and she has written widely on the subject.
Other local community members who will participate in the panel include Claudia Hamilton, vice-president of the board for NAMI Rome and co-founder of Brother’s Place; Roy Young, a clinical behavioral technician at Atrium Health/Floyd; Brittney Galvanaukas, executive director of Living Proof Recovery in Rome; and Beth Lambert, of the Georgia Council for Recovery.
The Sara Hightower Regional Library System will also be present with resources for helping people with re-entry. The library has compiled a reentry resource guide titled, “Coming Home: Essential Resources for Returning Citizens,” that includes Floyd, Polk, and Chattooga Counties. You can get a copy of the guide at your local library or download a copy from the library’s website. Creation of this guide was made possible in part by a Libraries Transform Communities Engagement Grant from the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office. Aside from the guide, the library is also hosting an immersive reentry event on April 23 at the Rome branch where participants can learn about the difficulties experienced by formerly incarcerated people experience first-hand.
“I am sorry to say that I had not ever given the issue serious thought,” said Leanne Cook, executive director of RIFF. “But we had the editors of the PROOF podcast speak at the Rome International Film Festival last year, and they brought along some members of our local community who had been incarcerated for many years. They each told stories about how family and friends had moved on, how they were bewildered by all the things that had changed while they spent decades in jail, and how hard it is to even get a driver’s license or a job interview. I started trying to help with some of their needs, and it was even hard for me as a person who knows some of the leaders in our community and has easy access to technology. I’m no shrinking violet, so I hung in there working to help them but it was very, very hard to make things happen.”
RIFF and Berry College are leading this film and discussion effort with community support, including from the Rome News-Tribune, One Community United, The Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation, Seven Hills Fellowship, and Georgia Highlands College.
“Part of how Berry wants to practice good neighbor culture is to partner with our local community and organizations to create opportunities that build bridges and love-centered solutions despite societal pressures of division and hate,” said Haley Smith, chief diversity and belonging officer for Berry College.
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