The Strike Film Screening & Panel Discussion

Amidst the redwood trees on the California-Oregon border sits one of the most infamous prisons in US history. Pelican Bay is a labyrinthine construction of solid cement blocks – a supermax prison – opened in 1989 and designed specifically for mass-scale solitary confinement. For decades, it held men alone in tiny cells indefinitely. Then one day in 2013, 30,000 prisoners went on hunger strike. The Strike is a feature documentary that tells the story of a generation of California men who endured decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launched the largest hunger strike in U.S. history.

Join us for a screening and discussion about the ways people in prisons organize against deathly conditions and how communities outside support their struggles to make forceful changes for freedom. 

We’ll be joined by panelists —

Dolores Canales is co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement; founder of Family UNIty Network and serves as the Director for the National Network of Solitary Survivors and Families project and advocates to end the use of solitary confinement. In addition, Dolores Secretary of the LA County Probation Oversight Commission. Dolores is a mother of a son locked up in  Pelican Bay’s SHU. 

Joe Sorrentino is a father and brother who was formerly incarcerated in Tamms Supermax prison in southern IL for ten years. While in Tamms he organized a hunger strike to bring attention to the horrid conditions of isolation. 

JoeBill Muñoz and Lucas Guilkey are documentary filmmakers, directors and producers of The Strike. JoeBill has directed short films for Independent Lens and NBC, and produced feature films and television series, including The Grab (Magnolia Pictures, Participant), The Circus (Showtime), The New York Times Presents (Hulu) and an upcoming series with Left/Right Media and HBO. Lucas Guilkey was story producer on AFTERSHOCK, a feature documentary about the U.S. maternal health crisis that debuted at Sundance in 2022 and is now streaming on Hulu. Before that he directed WHAT HAPPENED TO DUJUAN ARMSTRONG?, a short documentary about the coverup of a young man’s death in county jail.