Vik Chopra

HAPPY BIRTHDAY follows Craig Smith, a young man grappling with trauma and grief - embodied in the form of a red backpack. Despite his efforts to rid himself of his hurt, the backpack keeps reappearing in his life. But when an advertisement for Hertz Pawn Emporium, a shop that buys trauma, comes on his TV, he finds a possible solution to forget it all. As he navigates his memories and emotions, Craig's journey culminates in a surprising confrontation that leads to a mix of release and acceptance, revealing the complexities of healing and letting go.

During a sudden prison lockdown, a group of incarcerated men confront the emotional weight of confinement and discover that solidarity and human connection may be the only way through the darkness.

This intimate verité documentary follows D. Nelson — a devoted father, husband, and leader 16 years into a 40-year prison sentence — as he finds freedom and redemption with a small family of filmmakers and incarcerated men producing an unprecedented short film project inside the Washington State Penitentiary's media lab, and bonds with a young intern learning to forgive her formerly incarcerated mother.

Nearly 30 years ago, Sister Helen Prejean sat down and wrote “Dead Man Walking,” her testimony to the horrors of witnessing a human being executed at the hands of the government, and her call to rise up and challenge the systems that support the death penalty. In “Sister Abolitionist,” she sits down with Unincarcerated Productions to reflect back on writing the book that changed her life, setting her on the trajectory of becoming one of the world’s leading death penalty abolitionists, and changing hearts and minds around the world.