What is S.H.A.R.E?

Screenwriting for Healing, self-Actualization, Redemption, and Empathy.

A program where screenwriting and filmmaking are used as a redemptive tool for incarcerated communities around the State of Washington that might not otherwise have a voice. SHARE is a program for catharsis, healing, and job-skills for those about to re-enter society.

This program is a first of its kind, using a shared love of movies to help students see themselves as heroes of their own stories, leveraging the craft of storytelling as a way to investigate the way people think, feel and act.

Stories are powerful. Imagine if you could harness that power to change a life.

SHARE takes different forms depending on the audience (adults or youth, long-term or short-term incarceration) and the outcomes include but are not limited to:

• students writing a short screenplay

• students collaborating to make a short film

• students demonstrating an understanding of theme, subtext and context for films and TV shows

• student-written scripts being professionally produced.

Third acts are redemptive. By creating their own screenplays and films, incarcerated women and youth learn they have the power to turn the next chapter of their life into a positive one. 

Where are we now?

In SHARE’s first year (2019), we successfully ran four 12-week courses, serving over 40 students with a two-course waiting list. One of the scripts from that first year, IN BETWEEN, was made into an award-winning short film in early 2020. 

After a long pandemic-pause in programs, SHARE started working with incarcerated high school students - at Echo Glen Children’s Center and Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center. Through these programs we partner with another incarcerated program — Pongo Poetry Project — and create short films based on poems written by students in Pongo’s program. Students spend around six weeks filming scenes they feel best capture the words. Due to privacy and legal issues, incarcerated students can’t use their own voices in the film, so we partner with neighboring high schools to have their students narrate the poems. 

SHARE creates two unique experiences: one for the incarcerated students and another for the audiences of their work.  

Students get to see their ideas turned into physical reality (either a screenplay or a film), and have their voices and stories valued.  Audiences get to experience work generated by a population they have likely never interacted with before, radically altering their perceptions.

Students create a deeper connection with themselves, and both they and the audience get to connect to each other in profound ways.  

Writing and creating movies that inspire growth and positive change is the most powerful and important use of the mediums. And connecting audiences to this work helps communities see incarcerated women and youth as more than their incarcerated label, creating — person by person — an environment that can give them a better chance to succeed once they return home. 

Where are we going?

Working closely with incarcerated women and young adults, it’s impossible not to see their humanity, dignity, creativity, and promise.

We want to strengthen the program at all current institutions and expand, inspiring students to use the power of story to change their lives. The potential for good, both for students and our communities, is limitless.

Writing and making movies that can inspire growth and positive change is perhaps the most powerful and important use of the mediums.

To book a screening and/or panel discussion, or to learn how you can be involved in the future of the SHARE Screenwriting Program, contact Lindy Boustedt: lindy at firstsightproductions.com

About IN BETWEEN:

In Between is the story of Lisa, a bi-racial highschooler who’s just moved from London to Seattle with her mom and sister. It’s the late-1980s and Lisa, struggling to fit in, is forced to navigate a semi-segregated school system and an all-white family who doesn’t know how to help.

Lisa, a SHARE student, has been incarcerated for over 15 years. This story is based on her life – an event that set her on the course for prison, but with a new “what if” at the center. What if it had gone differently? What if she had found connection and belonging?

Lisa narrates at the end of the film: “As a young girl I had a hard time figuring out my identity. I didn’t know how to be Black. I got caught up in street life because I thought that’s what being Black was about. This film shows what should happen for children struggling to find their identity. My deepest desire is for people to see this film, recognize a similar struggle in someone they know, and be a friend to that person.”

In Between explores issues of race, class, acceptance, and the discomfort we all feel when we’re in a new place, searching for who we want to be. Our hope is that the film will ignite conversations with young people, and especially with young women who may feel caught and unsure as they navigate their own “in between.”

Directed by Lindy Boustedt, lead instructor of SHARE, In Between was created by a team of passionate artists whose films have played prestige festivals around the world and been seen by millions of people. It is produced by Lindy, Kris Boustedt, Debra Pralle, Chad Pralle, Nicole Pouchet, and Heather Pilder Olson.