For Venida, For Kalief

FOR VENIDA, FOR KALIEF debuts the poetry of Venida Brodnax Browder, mother of Kalief Browder-an African-American teenager who inspired incarceration reform in the United States. Venida’s poems serve as a guiding thread through this emotional journey, blending verite, poetic visuals, and rare archival imagery to shed light on the long vicious cycle of mass incarceration and the contemporary movement to transform Rikers Island into a renewable energy center. This film reveals how an individual’s life—and afterlife—can transcend boundaries to ignite social and cultural change once thought unattainable.