The new feature-length film “Songs from the Hole” tells a story of art, family, and forgiveness through the unconventional medium of a documentary visual album. The film centers on the life and music of James “JJ’88” Jacobs, who composed an entire musical opus while serving a life sentence that began in his teenage years. It chronicles his coming-of-age behind bars, using his own music to navigate the profound internal struggles of an individual who has both perpetrated and been a victim of extreme violence. The result is a testament to the power of art to forge a path toward healing and peace in the most restrictive of circumstances.
The Narrative Form: A Documentary Visual Album
The film forges its own path, departing from traditional documentary conventions to create a hybrid structure with Jacobs’s music as its narrative and emotional core. The story unfolds across ten original hip-hop and soul songs that Jacobs wrote and composed while incarcerated, which form the film’s narrative spine. These musical pieces are visualized through scripted segments, based on treatments Jacobs himself wrote, that feature actors portraying him at various stages of his life. This musical foundation is then interwoven with non-fiction elements, including first-person narration from Jacobs, readings from his journals, and interviews with his family. The storytelling is further layered with mixed-media components, including imagined reenactments, dream sequences, and animation, all designed to give form to Jacobs’s interior world.
This unique format was born from necessity. With its protagonist physically inaccessible, the filmmakers turned a logistical limitation into a defining aesthetic strength. Jacobs’s presence is primarily auditory, his voice delivered through recordings of 15-minute prison phone calls that position him as the narrator of his own story. The periodic countdown to the end of each call serves as a stark, recurring reminder of his confinement. In the absence of direct access, his music—much of it written in the isolation of a 6×6-foot solitary confinement cell—becomes the most direct artifact of his experience, translating an otherwise inaccessible reality to the screen.
The Story of James ‘JJ’88’ Jacobs
The documentary presents the stark, pivotal events of Jacobs’s life. In 2004, at 15 years old, he took a life and was subsequently convicted of murder. Just three days later, his own brother was killed, positioning him as a figure who has both inflicted and endured profound violent loss. Sentenced to 40-years-to-life, he spent 18 years in the California state prison system before his release in 2022. A significant portion of that time was spent in solitary confinement, or “the hole,” where songwriting became a way to “manufacture hope” and where he composed much of the music featured in the film.
The film’s narrative deliberately moves beyond a simple arc of redemption. By consistently framing its subject as a person grappling with the duality of having “committed and experienced violent harm,” the story confronts the complex realities of cyclical violence. It focuses instead on themes of accountability, grief, and a continuous process of self-reckoning. Forgiveness, a concept he meditated on while in isolation, is central to his story and that of his family, including his father William, mother Janine, sister Reneasha, and his fiancée and prison advocate, Indigo Mateo. The focus on his “acceptance” of his actions and their consequences creates a nuanced portrait that resists easy categorization, prompting a more sophisticated conversation about harm and justice.
The Collaborative Creation of ‘Songs from the Hole’
The film is the outcome of a deeply collaborative, non-hierarchical partnership. The creative team was led by director Contessa Gayles, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose work often explores identity and liberation. She was brought into the project by producer richie reseda, a formerly incarcerated abolitionist-feminist organizer whom Gayles had previously featured in her 2018 documentary “The Feminist on Cellblock Y.” Reseda, who is also the film’s music producer, has been a friend and collaborator of Jacobs since they met in prison in 2015. The third key partner is Jacobs himself, credited not only as the subject and composer but also as a writer and co-producer. The entire creative process was conducted through letters and timed prison phone calls, with Jacobs writing the initial visual treatments for his songs, making him a central author of the film’s narrative.
This production structure mirrors the film’s message. The project is credited as a film by Cocomotion Pictures, Gayles’s independent production company, and by Question ¿ Culture, the social-impact media company and worker-owned collective founded by reseda while he was incarcerated. With an explicit abolitionist-feminist mission, Question Culture operates on a non-exploitative business model and houses Jacobs’s music. This method of creation, which centers and empowers system-impacted individuals as partners, serves as a real-world application of the transformative principles the film explores. The production also received support from established non-fiction funders, including Impact Partners and the Artemis Rising Foundation.
Critical Acclaim and Social Impact
Since its world premiere, “Songs from the Hole” has earned considerable acclaim on the 2024 film festival circuit, winning the Audience Award in the Visions category at SXSW and the Jury Prize for Best Feature Documentary at the BlackStar Film Festival. In a particularly resonant honor, the film received the “Excellence in Criminal Justice Storytelling Award” from a jury of incarcerated men at the first film festival held inside New York’s Sing Sing prison. It has also received awards from the Newark Black Film Festival, Indie Street Film Festival, and New Orleans Film Festival. Beyond accolades, the film is designed to be a tool for social dialogue. It is the centerpiece of an impact campaign, managed by organizations like Represent Justice, that uses the story for “cultural organizing.” The campaign aims to bring the film to audiences directly affected by the carceral system, provide tools for healing, and highlight community-based alternatives to retributive justice.
The documentary-musical “Songs from the Hole” has a runtime of 106 minutes and is rated R. The film premieres globally on Netflix today, August 13.
