AFTER INNOCENCE

About the Film

AFTER INNOCENCE tells the dramatic and compelling story of the exonerated - innocent men wrongfully imprisoned for decades and then released after DNA evidence proved their innocence. The film focuses on the gripping story of seven men and their emotional journey back into society and efforts to rebuild their lives. Included are a police officer, an army sergeant and a young father sent to prison and even death row for decades for crimes they did not commit.

The men are thrust back into society with little or no support from the system that put them behind bars. While the public views exonerations as success stories - wrongs that have been righted - AFTER INNOCENCE shows that the human toll of wrongful imprisonment can last far longer than the sentences served.

The film raises basic questions about human rights and society's moral obligation to the innocent and places a spotlight on the flaws in our criminal justice system that lead to wrongful conviction of the innocent. The film features exonerees Dennis Maher of Lowell, MA; Calvin Willis of Shreveport, LA; Scott Hornoff of Providence, RI; Wilton Dedge of Cocoa Beach, FL.; Vincent Moto of Philadelphia, PA; Nick Yarris of Philadelphia, PA; and Herman Atkins of Los Angeles, CA.

It also features Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, founders of the Innocent Project which has helped to exonerate the more than l50 people freed through the use of DNA testing in the last decade; and highlights the work of human rights activist Dr. Lola Vollen, co-founder of the Life After Exoneration Program.

AFTER INNOCENCE is directed by Jessica Sanders, an Academy-Award nominated filmmaker (“Sing!”), and is produced and written by Jessica Sanders and Marc Simon in association with The American Film Foundation, an Academy® and Emmy®-award winning production company. Simon attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and was a student at the Innocence Project, an experience that inspired the idea for this film.

AFTER INNOCENCE is a Showtime Independent Films Presentation in association with American Film Foundation.

Filmmakers

Jessica Sanders
Director, Producer, Writer
Jessica Sanders is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker who works in fiction and non-fiction productions. She produced the film Sing! which received Oscar and Emmy nominations in 2002 and aired nationally on PBS. Her previous film, Los Angels, a narrative film that she wrote, produced, and directed, played at numerous festivals and received the Gold Plaque Award at the Chicago International Festival, the Lagniappe Best Short Film at the New Orleans Festival, among other awards. Sanders was an Associate Producer on the 2003 Oscar Winning Documentary Short Film Twin Towers and Series Associate Producer and Camera Operator on Dick Wolf’s NBC documentary series Crime & Punishment. Sanders is an alumna of the Independent Feature Project’s Project Involve and the filmmaker Producer’s Lab, where she is among a select group of filmmakers chosen to develop Independent film projects. Sanders is currently developing documentary and narrative feature film projects.

Marc Simon
Producer, Writer
Marc H. Simon is an attorney and filmmaker, and has experience working in front of the camera as an actor and on-air correspondent. Simon is a graduate of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and is an alumnus of its Innocence Project, an experience which inspired the making of After Innocence . He is also an associate at the law firm of Dreier LLP in New York City. In addition he currently works as a legal correspondent and producer for Fox Television's A Current Affair. Marc has worked in film development and film production, and as an actor he appeared in the Spike Lee directed feature 25th Hour . He is currently developing a reality-based television series and two non-fiction films.

Charles Bernstein
Composer
Charles Bernstein has written numerous scores for feature films and television specials, including for the Oscar winning films Czechoslovakia 1968 and Maya Lin. He is a Governor representing the Composers Branch on the Academy of Motion Picture Board of Governors.

Brian Johnson
Editor
Brian Johnson is an accomplished editor who was nominated for an ACE Award for Best Editing in a Documentary for the 1999 Academy Award-nominated feature Buena Vista Social Club.

Cinematographers

Shana Hagan
Hagan has photographed over 40 documentary and narrative films, including the Oscar winning Breathing Lessons about poet and journalist Mark O Brian.

Buddy Squires
Squires has photographed six Academy Award nominated films, one Oscar winning film and 9 Emmy Award winning films. His cinematography is featured in nearly all of Ken Burns' films.

Bestor Cram
Cram is an award winning director, producer and cinematographer.

Bob Richmond
Richmond photographed the Academy Award nominated My Architect and the award winning Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, among dozens of feature documentaries.

Production Company
American Film Foundation
Based out of Santa Monica, California, American Film Foundation is an Academy® and Emmy® award-winning film production company that produces theatrical documentary features, series and specials on the arts, social and human rights issues, the environment and humanities.