Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, June 17: A PLACE TO STAND
Daniel Glick’s portrait of a prisoner turned poet premiered in New Mexico in 2014. Festival play has included Boulder, Maui, Sedona, Napa Valley, Santa Fe, and Illuminate. The doc now comes to VOD platforms including iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Vudu, Youtube, XBOX, Playstation and Cable On Demand.
Jimmy Santiago Baca was sent to the notorious Arizona State Prison to serve five years for theft and drug charges. Hardened by a childhood of abandonment and abuse, he acted out as an adult through violence and aggression, and was given solitary confinement. When a Christian missionary reached out to him via letters, the essentially illiterate Baca became inspired to learn to read. Struggling through the process over a long period, he gained a new perspective and self-confidence, abandoning violence for the power of self-expression. Developing into a poet while still incarcerated, he began to have his work published, and, after his release, he has returned to prisons to lead writing workshops. While Baca’s story of redemption is compelling, Glick tells it in a conventional manner, weighing it down with an excess of narration and talking heads, making for an unfortunately static experience that detracts from the power of the poet’s words.
what (not) to doc 