Up the Ridge

Up the Ridge (2008)

Executive Producer: Nick Szuberla
Co-Producers: Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby
Editor: Anne Lewis
Sound: Nick Szuberla
Cinematography: Nick Szuberla, Justine Richardson, Robert Salyer, and Peter Pearce

Up the Ridge is a 2006 documentary film revealing injustices in the American Prison System. It especially highlights prisoners sent from urban areas to be incarcerated in rural supermax prisons, such as Red Onion State Prison and Wallens Ridge State Prison. The film delves into issues of human rights abuses, prisoner abuse, and prisoner suicide.

The documentary explores the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film displays competing political agendas that seem to align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict.

Up the Ridge was created as a part of the Thousand Kites project, a nonprofit organization aimed at exacting prison reform through narrative means. (Kite is prison slang for sending a message)

Selected Screenings
Maysles Documentary Center
In-Doc Film Festival, Jakarta, Indonesia
Athens International Film and Video Festival “Best Documentary”
San Francisco Frozen Film Festival
Big Muddy Film Festival “John Michaels Award”
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
Southern Fried Flicks Film Festival
Northampton Independent Film Festival
Rural Route Film Festival
One World Film Festival

Articles, Research, and News about Up the Ridge:

Alison Stine (2019) The Phantom Promise: How Appalachia Was Sold on Prisons as an Economic Lifeline. Yes! Magazine.

Vaidya Gullapalli (2019) Fighting Against A New Prison—and Winning- In Eastern Kentucky. The Appeal.

Will Goldsmith (2006) Indie doc attacks state prison. Cville.

Melinda Tuhus (2006) A Prison Story and A People’s Victory. New Haven Independent.