Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison

Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Documentary and Nominee for Best Editing Emmy, Film Independent’s Truer Than Fiction Award and Cinema Eye’s Best Broadcast Non-fiction Film.

SOLITARY, directed by Jacobson, tells the stories of several inmates sent to Red Onion State Prison, one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US, built to hold inmates in 8’x10’ cells, 23 hours-a-day. Built atop an Appalachian mountaintop, Red Onion is nearly 300 miles from any urban center, and holds up to 500 prisoners – isolated, and forgotten by the world.

With unprecedented access, this immersive and visceral film weaves through prison corridors and cells, capturing the chilling sounds and haunting atmosphere of a supermax prison. Profoundly intimate and reflective interviews with inmates reveal violent childhoods, the dangers of prison life, and struggles to maintain sanity in the unrelenting monotony of confinement.

SOLITARY has screened at over 20 festivals here and abroad, had its theatrical debut in NY and LA, and is now available to watch on HBO.