Jail Time Records at Casa IED New York
Date
03 November 2026
Time
19:00 PM - 21:00 PM
Fruition
In-person event
Music beyond prison walls: creativity, identity and collective expression
At Casa IED New York, the Plural Intelligences series continues with a screening of Jail Time Records, the award-winning documentary directed by Dione Roach and Steve Happi, exploring how music can become a powerful language of identity, expression and connection, even within prison walls.
Filmed over six years inside New Bell Prison in Douala, Cameroon, the documentary follows a collective of musicians working around the first permanent recording studio established inside an African prison. Founded in 2018, Jail Time Records has since evolved into a non-profit music label, bringing the voices and creative work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated artists beyond the prison walls.
Winner of Best Documentary Feature and the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director at the 2026 Tribeca Festival, the film intertwines everyday life, musical performances and intimate personal stories, revealing the transformative potential of creativity within a reality marked by confinement and inequality.
As part of the Plural Intelligences framework, the screening invites reflection on music as a form of knowledge, resilience and collective expression, capable of creating new possibilities for dialogue and social connection.
Following the screening, directors and Jail Time Records co-founders Dione Roach and Steve Happi will join the audience for a Q&A session, opening a conversation on the relationship between creativity, freedom and social transformation.
The event is part of Casa IED's public program in New York, developed to foster dialogue across creative disciplines and communities.
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