TITLE: Futures in Freedom

Funder: Valencia City Council
Total budget: €21,216
Grant amount: €9,769
Start date: 03/01/2021
End date: 02/28/2022

"Futures in freedom" is a creative and transformative project aimed at inmates at the Antoni Asunción Hernández Penitentiary Center in Valencia. Its proposal is structured around two complementary lines: on the one hand, a group artistic creation process that takes place twice a week, where participants experiment with various artistic techniques in a safe, intimate space supported by specialized professionals. This environment, based on play, free expression, and exchange, allows them to channel emotions, thoughts, and personal stories through art, fostering self-knowledge and a connection with their own identity beyond the prison context.

The second line of the project culminates in the collective creation of a feature-length fiction film, conceived, written, and starring the inmates themselves, based on the life stories that emerge during the artistic process. Throughout this process, skills related to teamwork, shared creativity, the construction of personal and collective narratives, and critical reflection on society and gender roles are developed. The gender perspective is specifically addressed with women, fostering role models that serve as inspiration in their creative processes, and with men, promoting values of equality, respect, and diversity. Furthermore, special attention is paid to individuals who are outside of heteronormativity, fostering their inclusion and empowerment through creative strategies that improve coexistence inside and outside the prison.

The project's public dimension is also essential. As it progresses, its stages are disseminated through social media, and once the feature film is completed, screenings are held in movie theaters, audiovisual festivals, and cultural centers, accompanied by spaces for reflection on the value of artistic creation in contexts of vulnerability. The project has the support of the prison itself, which has highly valued its artistic, participatory, and transformative approach, and its ability to convey to society a more just and complex image of inmates through art, film, and shared words.

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