Prison films explored at Chichester International Film Festival

Fantasies of Fear, Authority and Escape is the title of a talk about prison films coming up at the Chichester International Film Festival.

Professor Emeritus of Cultural History Maggie Andrews, who is part of the education team at the Chichester Cinema at New Park, will speak on Saturday, August 15 at 13:00 in the venue’s Lumiere cinema.

From classic masterpieces to modern favourites, Maggie will explore the films which have shaped attitudes towards the penal system since the silent era when Buster Keaton’s Convict 13 (1920) was praised for its surreal hanging execution.

Maggie said: “I'm particularly interested in prison films because some 15 years ago or so I did some part-time teaching in a prison for the Open University. And I was very aware when I did that that most people have lots of views about prisons and about incarceration but these are people who have never been through the doors of a prison.”

The point is that “most of our images and understanding of what prisons are like come from the media. For most people that is the only way that they encounter prison, and there is a huge gap between the media perception and the huge amount of noise that goes on about who is in prison, how long they should be in prison and how prisoners are treated even though in this country we have one of the highest numbers of prisoners in Europe and more people in prison for longer.

“The point is that it is a very selective image.

“We talk about prison films but actually there is a huge variety of films. You've got the jolly ones like Green Fingers where there is wonderful redemption. And then there are ones that are quite gritty and hard to watch which are usually around a man being very resilient in the face of horrendous circumstances, films like Shawshank Redemption. And then there are a lot of prisoner of war films, less popular now than they were after the war perhaps but films that show a very different attitude when the prisoners were not people that were a marginal group within society but were a lot of ordinary people caught up in war. And then there are films about women in prison which tend to be quite different again. They tend to be quite campaigning films, deliberately campaigning films like Clemency (directed by Chinonye Chukwu, 2019).”

As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.

“It goes from her having to deal with a slightly botched execution to having to put somebody else to death when most people are not completely convinced of his guilt. It shows the horrendous effect of what we ask people to do on the people that have to do it.”

Maggie is emeritus professor of Cultural History at the University of Worcester. Her research focuses on 20th-century British social history, specifically exploring domesticity, femininity, and the Home Front. She frequently speaks and writes on women's history.

She has published numerous books, including Women and Evacuation in the Second World War and The Acceptable Face of Feminism: The Women's Institute Movement. In addition to academia, she has been a historical consultant for the BBC, advising on the World War One at Home project and the Radio 4 drama Home Front.