Bring Down the Walls

Bring Down the Walls looks at the prison-industrial complex in America, the industry that profits from the expansion of prisons, and juxtaposes it with the liberating power of house music. Directed by artist Phil Collins, the film brings together interviews he conducted with inmates at Sing Sing with documentation of a unique public art project. Transforming a New York firehouse into a community space, the project took the form of a radical school by day, with talks and workshops, and a euphoric dance club by night. A space for knowledge sharing and dancing with abandon!

‘All social interactions are inherently political. Historically, house culture has often been a mode of resistance, opening up new understandings of community and solidarity. Its radical proposition of simply being together offers another way of engaging the conversation around the criminal justice system, which sentences discriminately and disproportionately, but impacts us all. Even after their release, people remain confined and punished by often invisible barriers – physical, emotional, economic. The very real human cost of systemic regressive policies comes sharply into focus through sharing time and space, and in direct exchange with one another.’

Phil Collins, Director