Review of “The Middle of Nowhere” ( Ava DuVernay, Director at the Sundance Film Festival)

Middle of Nowhere gives voice to an all-too-familiar circumstance facing million of American families, particularly those of color.  It chronicles the impact of mass incarceration on families, living on the outside, with relatives on the inside. According to a report entitled “Children of Incarcerated Parents,” in 2007 America was home to 1.7 million children (under 18) whose parent was being held in state or federal prison – that is 2.3 percent of American children will likely be celebrating father’s day away from dad.  Despite hegemonic clamoring about family values, the prison industrial complex continues to ravage American families.  Since 1991, the number of children with a father in prison has increased from 881,500 to 1.5 million in 2007.  Over this same time period, children of incarcerated mothers increased from 63,900 to 147,400.  Roughly half of these children are younger than 9, with 32 percent between the ages of 10 and 14.  This reality is not just about children but about families forced to live at a crossroads between lack – of contact, lack of physical contact – and desire – to be free, to touch, to be with family.  It is a reality that separates families and pushes members farther and farther apart.  On average, children live 100 miles away from their incarcerated parents.  This is the same of partners, and other family members, who are dislocated, punished and literally left out in the cold.
Chronicling the story of Ruby and Derek (Omari Hardwick) Middle of Nowhere brilliantly reveals the costs and consequences of mass incarceration.  Derek is literally stuck in the middle of nowhere, detached geographically, physically, emotionally – he cannot see his daughter; his wife cannot kiss him.  With no his release precarious at best and his future bleak given the lifetime sentences resulting from felony convictions, Derek is resigned to the middle of nowhere, existing without any paths toward freedom or even existence. It is not just Derek and his fellow incarcerated men and women housed in places like Victorville are confined to the middle of nowhere, hidden behind barbered wire fences, walls, and isolation, but their families as well.

NewBlackMan (in Exile): At the Borderlands of Mass Incarceration: A Review of Middle of Nowhere.