Accompanied by animation, writer and activist Marvin Wade speaks personally about his 25 years of incarceration—and the positive transformation he achieved in spite of, not because of, the inhumane prison system around him.
LANGUAGE : English COUNTRY : USA YEAR : 2025 DURATION : 7m DIRECTORS : Evan Bode, Marvin Wade WRITER, NARRATOR : Marvin Wade ANIMATOR : Evan Bode
Director’s statement : Evan Bode: “As I worked on this film—which was developed in conversation with Marvin Wade—my time-consuming, time-based art practice of animation allowed a perfect space to reflect on Wade’s writing about time and how we use it. I animated slowly, thinking about change while creating images that change, using a mix of materials including watercolors, acrylics, charcoal, markers, pens, colored pencils, and oil pastels. I see my visual interpretation as serving a supporting role, designed to harmonize with Marvin’s primary text and lived experience, which is at the film’s center. I believe Marvin offers a moving affirmation of the human capacity for positive transformation, as well as a powerful critique of a dehumanizing prison system that works to prevent growth and healing, rather than foster it.
This film was commissioned by Project Mend as the first in a planned series of artist/author collaborations, adapting the published work of prison-impacted authors for an audiovisual medium to add a new expressive dimension and introduce their stories to a wider audience. It contains only excerpts of Marvin’s full essay “Time and Prison: Are They Mutually Exclusive?” which was published in Volume 3 of Mend in 2025 and is available to read online in its entirety.”
Bios :
Evan Bode is an award-winning experimental animator, independent filmmaker, mixed media artist, composer, editor, and arts educator. Evan’s short films, which break binaries through a stylistic mix of live-action and animation, have been celebrated at major film festivals across the United States and around the world.
Marvin Wade is a Spiritual Activist and family man, born in 1970 and raised in Brooklyn, NY. While incarcerated for 25 years, Marvin wrote multiple books worth of stories, novels, and personal essays on every bit of paper he could find, combining his gift as a storyteller with the art of writing. A celebrated writer and speaker, Marvin has read his work at spaces such as the Malin Gallery, Princeton University, The Everson Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. You can read his writings in publications such as Mend, Voices of Fortune, and recreationwriters.
Additional acknowledgements
This film was produced in partnership with Project Mend, with special thanks to Patrick Berry and the editors of Mend.
Project Mend is a multimodal, grassroots-level, open-access national archive centered on the creative work of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals and their communities. The initiative explores how people learn to write themselves into new identities and new lives by centering their interests, stories, and histories. Mend emphasizes creative expression as healing, positioning storytelling as data and testimony—forms of knowledge often excluded from traditional academic and public archives.
Project Mend is made possible through collaboration with the Center for Community Alternatives and through an HNY Post-Incarceration Humanities Partnership, which is generously supported by the Mellon Foundation and the CNY Humanities Corridor. Additionally, the project has been supported at Syracuse University by the Engaged Humanities Network, the Humanities Center, the SOURCE, Syracuse University Libraries, and the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition.
Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.
Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.
