A 5 minute animated short film, called "The Box", recently won a well-deserved award from the New Orleans Film Festival . "The Box" is directed by Michael Schiller and produced in part by the Center for Investigative Journalism The film follows Ismael “Izzy” Nazario, a 16 year old child who spends 300 days in solitary confinement while imprisoned in Rikers Island. This time was done before Izzy was convicted of a crime. Izzy's mother had fallen victim to cancer before his arrest, leading Izzy to become less engaged in school and try to escape a suffocating situation at home by falling in with friends in the street. This lead to an arrest for theft. "The Box" uses powerful animation, scrawled in black and white like a sketching on a concrete wall. The images are reinforced by a voice over from Izzy, who describes confrontations with older prisoners who try to steal his shoes, how the ink on letters he received would run and smudge from sweat cause
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