Screenwriting for Healing, self-Actualization, Redemption & Empathy
What is SHARE?
Stories are powerful. Imagine if you could harness that power to change a life.
SHARE is a program where screenwriting and filmmaking are used as redemptive tools for incarcerated communities around Washington State who might not otherwise have a voice - offering catharsis, healing, and job-skills for those about to re-enter society.
By tapping into a shared love of movies, this unique program helps students see themselves as the heroes of their own stories. Through the craft of visual storytelling, participants gain not only technical skills but also a deeper understanding of how people think, feel and act.
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.
What do we do?
SHARE creates two unique experiences: one for the incarcerated students and another for the audiences of their work.
In SHARE’s first year (2019), we successfully ran four 12-week courses at WA’s Correction Center for Women, 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, Green Hill School, and Judge Patricia H. Clark Children and Family Justice Center. Through these programs we partner with other incarcerated arts programs — Pongo Poetry Project, The Bridge Music Project — and create short films based on poems/essays/songs written by students. 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 work with neighboring high schools to have their students narrate the poems.
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. In the end communities see incarcerated women and youth as more than their incarcerated label, creating an environment that can give them a better chance to succeed once they return home.
Where are we going?
We want to strengthen the program at all current institutions & expand, inspiring students to use the power of story to change their lives.
Working closely with incarcerated women and young adults, it’s impossible not to see their humanity, dignity, creativity, and promise. 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.
Support SHARE’s mission
You can help SHARE continue its work by making a tax-deductible donation through our fiscal sponsor, Understory Arts. Your gift will support ongoing classes, the creation of new videos, and expanded outreach to incarcerated women and youth.
Together, we can amplify voices and foster healing through the arts.
Click here to donate
Meet our Advisory BoarD
Felice Davis (Upton)
Felice has spent over two decades working across adult and juvenile corrections, with a career dedicated to opening doors of opportunity for system-impacted people. She began in corrections in 2003, ultimately serving six years as Associate Superintendent of Programs at Washington Corrections Center for Women, before moving upstream to juvenile justice in 2020 as a facility superintendent. Most recently, she served as Assistant Secretary for Juvenile Rehabilitation at the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Felice was instrumental in the founding and expansion of SHARE: she first brought the program to WCCW in 2018, and later ensured its inclusion at Echo Glen Children’s Center and Green Hill School. Without her vision and leadership, SHARE would not exist in its current capacity. Today, through her consulting practice, JustUs by Felice Upton Coaching, she continues her commitment to equity, healing, and leadership development.
Nebeu Shimeles
Nebeu is Co-Executive Director of the Pongo Poetry Project, where he oversees development, finance, and operations to advance the mission of inspiring healing and growth through poetry for youth who have experienced trauma. He leverages his background in development to secure resources that expand Pongo’s reach and deepen its impact. Under his leadership, Pongo has partnered with SHARE, which transforms poems from Pongo’s workshops into short films created by incarcerated students - amplifying youth voices while extending Pongo’s healing work through visual storytelling. For Nebeu, this work is deeply meaningful: by addressing unacknowledged trauma and systemic inequities, Pongo offers young people an empathetic space for healing and a vital path toward social justice.
Derek Edamura
Derek Edamura is a documentary editor, teaching artist, and community organizer dedicated to building partnerships that empower emerging artists to tell authentic stories. Before becoming Executive Director of Northwest Film Forum in 2022, Derek served as Education Director, where he led the reinstatement of all educational programs following the Forum’s 18-month pandemic closure. He spearheaded the creation of the ACTION! Narrative Apprenticeship Program and expanded the Forum’s two core workshop series, RG Pro Production Intensives and Filmmaking Fundamentals. With over 13 years of experience working across independent film, nonprofits, and community programs, Derek brings a deep commitment to equity, imagination, and joy in fostering artistic collaboration and community storytelling.
Get Involved
To book a screening and/or panel discussion, or to learn how you can be involved in the future of SHARE, contact Lindy Boustedt: lindy at firstsightproductions.com
Watch our latest work
Our videos
CHANGING WAYS
Images created by students at Green Hill School, a juvenile detention facility in Lewis County, WA. Poem written by a student at Echo Glen High School in King County, WA as part of the Pongo Poetry Project.
Green Hill School | Pongo Poetry Project | Echo Glen Children's Center
Do you vote?
Images created by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Students share their thoughts around voting and what inspires them or would inspire them to vote. There were a lot of tough conversations in the making of this film as these students feel especially unheard and powerless to change their communities and country. Still, a lot of them are pledging to vote when they can and hope you'll consider registering and voting too. Voiceover performed by staff at Echo Glen High School.
FIND MY WAY BACK HOME
Images created by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Poem written by student at Echo Glen as part of the Pongo Poetry Project with voiceover provided by staff at The Bridge Music Project.
Bridge Music Project | Pongo Poetry Project | Echo Glen Children's Center
What I miss
Images and statements created by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Voiceover performed by students at Renton High School.
Words of wisdom
Images created by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Poem written by student at Echo Glen as part of the Pongo Poetry Project with voiceover performed by students at Renton High School.
Renton High School | Pongo Poetry Project | Echo Glen Children's Center
Please understand
Statements written by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Voiceover performed by students at Issaquah High School and Renton High School.
Issaquah High School | Renton High School | Echo Glen Children's Center
Letter to God
Images created by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Poem written by student at Echo Glen as part of the Pongo Poetry Project with voiceover performed by students at Issaquah High School.
Pongo Poetry Project | Issaquah High School | Echo Glen Children's Center
What makes me proud
Images and statements created by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Voiceover performed by students at Issaquah High School.
Reflecting resilience
We interviewed SHARE students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA, what resilience looks like and/or means to them.
Strengthening Families Washington | Neely Goniodsky - Animator | Echo Glen Children's Center
Walk one mile
Images created by students at Echo Glen High School, a juvenile detention facility in King County, WA. Poem written by student at Echo Glen as part of the Pongo Poetry Project with voiceover performed by students at Mount Si High School's Digital Media Academy.
Mount Si Digital Media Academy | Echo Glen Children's Center | Pongo Poetry Project
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.