Between the Bars

A film by Ed Owles and Steph Beeston
Produced by Vox Holloway Community Choir

With support from Arts Council England and UK Prison Reform Trust

Between the Bars traces the journey of North London choir, Vox Holloway, as its
members tackle a new oratorio, The Sun Does Shine, by Harvey Brough with libretto
by Justin Butcher. Essentially the film is about an ordinary choir creating
extraordinary music – music that is powerful, disconcerting and uplifting. It is based
on the true story of Anthony Ray Hinton, an innocent man, who spent 30 years on
Death Row in Alabama before his release in 2015, and it is possibly the most
challenging and inspiring project that the choir has undertaken.
How to convey, through words and music, Anthony Ray’s ordeal of brutal injustice in
a context far removed from our own experience? How to sing about the horrors of a
deeply embedded racist system, as well as the redemptive power of love and
forgiveness, with conviction and integrity? How to make that story relevant to a UK
audience, such that it might challenge our own attitudes and assumptions?
The film explores how the choir met these challenges, including by reaching out to
prisoners themselves. For two years, as the project evolved, choir members wrote to
prisoners in the UK, many of whom spoke about the role music plays in helping them
cope with long-term and, in some cases, indeterminate sentences.
The insights will be of interest to artists and choirs involved in similar creative work.
But the film also touches on wider questions posed when art tackles complex social
issues such as capital punishment, racism, and long-term imprisonment, and speaks
to the role of the arts in raising awareness and helping to make change happen.
The film was made in collaboration with the UK Prison Reform Trust and Arts
Council England.
Promo video clip (2 mins):