In 1997, Jonathan Stack and Liz Garbus spent a year filming inside of Louisiana’s maximum-security penitentiary. Surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River and spread across 18,000 acres, Angola with 5000 inmates, is one of the oldest and largest prisons in the US. Louisiana doles out sentences so extremes that 95% of those who enter its gates die here. A slave plantation until the end of the Civil War and a prison ever since, Angola was long considered the bloodiest prison in the country. “The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison” intimately captured the day-to-day reality of six men living – and dying – in America’s most infamous penal institution. In the process, it captured their innate humanity, and the relationships and community that they build to sustain one another. By revealing a powerful and universal truth – that to err is human and to forgive, Divine – “The Farm” touched an enormous and receptive audience and garnered many of cinema and broadcast’s top awards, including Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize, three Emmys and an Oscar nomination. When first broadcast on A&E, “The Farm” attracted the largest audience for a documentary feature in the network’s history. “The Farm” was broadcast in 15 countries, including Japan, Australia, and throughout Europe, and has been the basis of educational programs throughout the nation since.
