Jail Time Records Documentary Wins 3 Tribeca Awards, Spotlighting Cameroon Prison Label
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Jul 26
Jail Time Records Documentary Wins 3 Tribeca Awards, Spotlighting Cameroon Prison Label
2 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Jul 26
Summary
Three Tribeca prizes, including best documentary feature, went last month to “Jail Time Records,” a film shot over six years inside Cameroon’s New Bell prison.
The documentary follows an inmate-run studio and label that turns prisoners into performers, with gang leader Empereur’s “Sa Ngando” drawing 24,000 YouTube views and songs reaching listeners in South Africa, the US and Argentina.
Founded in 2018 by former inmate Steve Happi and Italian artist Dione Roach, the project frames music as rehabilitation in a prison Human Rights Watch said held 4,700 inmates in 2022—about four times capacity.
The film also shows the prison’s harsher reality, from failed family contact and violence among inmates to an in-memoriam tribute for six prisoners who died during the project’s run.
With backing from prison authorities, Jail Time Records has expanded to New Bell’s women’s wing and to a second studio 1,000 miles away in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou.