“Jail Time Records” Sweeps Tribeca With Three Documentary Prizes

 

Jail Time Records has stormed this year’s Tribeca Festival, taking home three major awards: Best Documentary Feature, the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director, and Best Cinematography in a Documentary Feature.

Directed and produced by Dione Roach and Steve Happi, the film follows three musicians—Stone, Transporteur, and Empereur—creating music and organizing a full-scale concert from inside the Central Prison of Douala in Cameroon. What starts as a modest recording studio inside an overcrowded prison becomes a lifeline, a makeshift label, and a rare portal to the outside world.

Founded in 2018, Jail Time Records is the first recording studio inside an African prison, launched to work with imprisoned artists as a radical experiment in hope, authorship, and redemption. The documentary moves through cramped alleyways and rehearsal rooms, staying close to the artists as they write, argue, dream, and perform under constant surveillance.

The film is executive produced by Taika Waititi and Rita Ora, alongside Garrett Basch, Caitlin Alba-Rothstein, and Gillian Brown, with Artists Equity and Jail Time Production among the producing partners. Their backing helps push a story born in one of the world’s toughest carceral settings onto a global stage—without sanding down its edges.

For screening information and tickets, visit the film’s Tribeca Festival page