An intimate portrait of Wes Burleson who, after being incarcerated for 23 years, harnesses the power of his creativity to create a new future for himself.

Directed by Anna Maite Kaplan and Orion Huang
Produced by Caitlyn Saw
Edited by Orion Huang

Selected into

Newport Beach Film Festival
Cannes Shorts Film Festival
Chagrin Film Festival (Best Short Documentary Award)
Ojai Film Festival
St. Louis International Film Festival
American Documentary Film Festival
NoHo Cinefest

Arrested at 20 and tried for murder, Wes Burleson served over 20 years in California prisons and jails. This film paints an intimate portrait of Wes—the prisoner, the muralist, the son, the boyfriend—on his journey to freedom, rehabilitation, and redemption.

The film is unafraid of confronting the hard truths of Wes’s crime and the harsh realities of mass incarceration and reentry. The film finds Wes at many crossroads—in and out of the transitional house, societal reintegration, and family reunification—and his resilience and astounding compassion for the arts are echoed throughout. In documenting Wes’s decades-long struggle for redemption, the film examines the conditions for creativity and complexities in the prison system of the United States, raising the greater question: How can criminals recover?