FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT

I first visited Donaldson Correctional Facility in 1999, and had an opportunity to meet with the prisoners now known as The Dhamma Brothers. What they told me about their lives in prison was deeply stirring and unforgettable. From that first visit, I became committed to these men, their stories, and their dreams of finding inner peace and redemption. The Dhamma Brothers tells the story of their journey inside to find freedom.
The prison is set in the Alabama countryside south of Birmingham, situated among thick woodland, red clay soil, and tangled kudzu vines. Wrapped around the prison on three sides, coiled like a snake as it flows south to the Gulf Coast, is the Black Warrior River. The prisoners live behind high security towers and a double row of barbed and electrical wire fences. Capable of delivering a lethal charge, the electrical wire gleams and glints in the sunlight with disarming beauty. Donaldson is the place where Alabama's most unmanageable and intransigent prisoners are sent. And yet, I also felt a stirring of hope amidst the stale air of danger, deprivation, and misery.
The Dhamma Brothers documents the extraordinary convergence of an overcrowded, understaffed, maximum-security prison - considered the end of the line in the Alabama correctional system - and an ancient meditation program. The film tells a dramatic tale of human potential and personal transformation as it follows the stories of 36 prisoners, focusing on 4 central characters, as they enter into this arduous and intensive program. In the nameless, faceless, anonymity of prison life, where daily life is ordered around social control and punishment, The Dhamma Brothers construct an alternative social identity based on brotherhood and spiritual development.
The stories of The Dhamma Brothers of Donaldson Correctional Facility are those of the unseen, unheard, and underserved. The film shines a spotlight upon society's outcasts and untouchables as they emerge from their journey with a collective sense of peace and purpose.