Thursday, June 19, 2014

Released (2013)

Director: Philip Messina
Run Time: 72 min.
Call Number: HV9276 .R45 2013

"'Released' is adapted from 'The Castle,' a 2008 Off Broadway play that starred four ex-cons speaking of their degradation and eventual redemption. The film has the same cast: Casimiro Torres, Kenneth Harrigan, Angel Ramos and Vilma Ortiz Donovan, all former longtime inmates of New York State prisons. Mr. Ramos alone served 30 years: 'How do I live like a normal human being,' he asks, 'when I have no idea what normal is?'

Performing in front of two audiences, one in a theater, the other in a prison, all four speak of the forces — religion, loved ones, epiphanies — that made them want to change; all four, now taxpaying jobholders, credit their success to the Castle, the 60-bed Manhattan residence run by the Fortune Society. In addition to shelter, the Castle provides career development and social training. Less than 10 percent of those who stayed there have returned to prison, according to the film."
—Daniel M. Gold, New York Times