The Odyssey Project
film and impact campaign that humanizes systemic inequality
With matters of racial justice dividing the nation, a new film delivers a story of hope, connection, and true change. The Odyssey Project humanizes the issue of systemic inequality in America’s criminal justice system and brings with it an impact campaign that will drive large-scale engagement in solutions.
Abstract
The criminalization of youth of color is a central component in America's ruinous mass incarceration system, one that has created the largest prison population in the world. Although Black and Hispanic adults comprise less than a third of the populace, they account for 57% of the imprisoned. Once ensnared in this system, few will escape. Through an experimental theater program based on Homer’s Odyssey, a new documentary follows four incarcerated boys for seven years as they attempt to discover their voices, navigate the labyrinth, and find their way home. But without resources to match those aimed against them, and with the winds of unequal enforcement and disparities in the judicial system blowing them back, a hero’s spirit is not enough.
Now, the film has given rise to a groundbreaking academic study showing racial bias in unequivocal terms, and everything could change. Armed with this study, the film's lead character has won a major victory against inequities in incarceration and sentencing. The Odyssey Project reveals the heroic struggle to achieve what every child deserves: a fair chance. But the journey is not over. The rest is up to us.
Impact campaign
Our Sundance 2020-awarded film team has developed and proven an impact campaign system and partnered with The National Urban League, The Equal Justice Initiative, The Santa Maria Racial Justice Committee, The Sentencing Project, and others to support the implementation of the California Racial Justice Act and other critical criminal justice reform actions.
Film synopsis
The Odyssey Project exposes the criminalization of youth of color and systemic racism in the United States criminal justice system. Using Homer's epic poem as a template, the film illuminates the struggles and discrimination faced by four incarcerated teens as they endeavor to find their voices through and after an experimental theater project in partnership with UC Santa Barbara. The film humanizes the stories of young people—both free and incarcerated—and in so doing, speaks to a youthful audience already engaged by the unrest of the day, informing and empowering the future leaders who will inherit this deeply-entrenched problem. At this time of deep division, when hope for justice seems lost, The Odyssey Project reignites faith in the promise of progress and determination to see it through.
Following their release from incarceration, the film documents the protagonists’ lives for seven years as they navigate back to their homes—their Ithaca. It highlights the unfair treatment young men of color face as they battle with police brutality, systemic inequality, gangs, addiction, racial profiling, and internalized demons.
The final chapter of the film focuses on the present-day situation of Donelle, one of four main characters, who was facing seventeen years in prison due to racial discrimination and targeting in northern Santa Barbara County. The film team retained renowned criminal defense attorney, Robert Sanger, to take on Donelle's case and give him a better chance of getting a fair sentence. This crucial intervention exposes the disparate outcomes sustained by marginalized people versus those with means when accused of a crime. In addition, it reveals the starkly disproportionate resources available to district attorneys over public defenders.
Donelle’s trial has created the potential for a historic precedent under the California Racial Justice Act, passed in 2020 to combat racial bias in the criminal justice system. Propelled by the film, UC Santa Barbara and UC Davis are conducting the first academic study to collect and analyze evidence of racial discrimination within the Santa Barbara County criminal justice system, particularly in sentencing. Using this data to provide grounds, Mr. Sanger filed a Racial Justice Act (RJA) motion in Donelle's case, winning him a vastly reduced sentence, and will use the study’s findings to file RJA motions in other cases in Santa Barbara County. If successful, these would be the first hearings granted for a Racial Justice Act motion in California history. The film will highlight both the case and the study, exposing the systemic racism and class inequalities in our criminal justice system and drawing a map for real action and progress.
We believe this film could be one of the keys that unlock long-overdue systemic change. With the new academic study and its associated potential for the California Racial Justice Act, the door will be opened for retroactively applying the RJA to correct past injustices and for other states to follow California’s example.
