Blank Slate

Two local filmmakers focus on prisoners working for the Mural Arts Program.

by Molly Eichel

Tony Heriza MAKING AMENDS: "I grew up in Kensington, and just dropping a little beauty into that neighborhood is a really good thing."

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In their most recent collaboration, Tony Heriza and Cindy Burstein went inside Graterford Prison, a maximum-security corrections facility just outside of Philadelphia, with Jane Golden and the Mural Arts Program. Their purpose was to document the prisoners' creation of a mural — from idea to completion — about issues surrounding both criminality and victimhood. Before the film, neither Burstein nor Heriza had set foot in a prison, and didn't know what to expect.

Tony Heriza: I think they feel really separated from the world. Part of it is about connection, feeling part of the world. Another part was they really saw it as a way to make a contribution, to make amends. As one inmate says, "I grew up in Kensington, and just dropping a little beauty into that neighborhood is a really good thing."

CP: I was really surprised when the prisoners said they were also victims of crime themselves. Was there anything the victims said that particularly surprised you?

Cindy Burstein: I was thinking of two points in particular where the victims would raise points challenging the prisoner perspective. In the first meeting, the victim advocate challenges the prisoner who is asking for forgiveness and she says back to him, "Who are you asking forgiveness of?" And he says, "Everyone." And she says, "I just wanted to clarify that because you can't ask for forgiveness from your victim. It's too burdensome." And then later in the film, there's another victim advocate struggling when the [prisoners] say, "I was a victim, too." And she says, "Don't compare yourself to someone who hasn't committed a crime."

CP: Tony, you mentioned that you had worked with the incarcerated before. How did that affect you?

TH: I was aware of things more in the abstract. I did know early on, as research for the film, that the prison population has grown from 300,000 in 1980 to 2.2 million in 2002. It just blew me away.

It made me interested in the issues when [my wife and Mural Arts Program director] Jane started working in the prison. I had not been in a prison because my work was much more about producing educational materials, so I hadn't been directly involved. As soon as she started working out there, I thought the concept of connecting people on the outside with people on the inside was really interesting, and was one that murals could do and one that we hope our documentary can do, too.

(molly.eichel@citypaper.net)

Concrete Steel & Paint | Thu., July 23, 7-9 p.m., $10 suggested donation, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., concretefilm.org