"In a nation crying for change, Since I Been Down is not only timely but a vital piece to an ever-growing picture that needs to be seen." Film Inquiry

Directed by Dr. Gilda Sheppard, Since I Been Down tells the dramatic story of how an American community, held captive by 1990’s punitive policies, led children into gangs, violence and drugs. For a false sense of safety, security and prosperity, this community rushed to discard the poorest, targeted brown and black youth into prisons for life. Nearly forty years later, a model and pathway to justice and healing is led from inside prison walls - a pathway uncovering why children turn to violence, and a model of justice to transform their lives, prisons, justice and our own humanity.

USA - 2020 - 1h 45m
Directed By: Dr. Gilda Sheppard
Written By: Dr. Gilda Sheppard

Director Biography - Gilda Sheppard

Gilda Sheppard is an award winning filmmaker who has screened her short documentaries throughout the USA, internationally at Film Afrique at Cannes, in Ghana, West Africa, and in Berlin Germany at the International Black Film Festival. Sheppard is a 2017 Hedgebrook Fellow for documentary film and a 2019 recipient of an Artist Trust Fellowship. Since I Been Down (2020) is her first feature and first film accepted to major film festivals. Sheppard’s films offer healing, inspire hope and spotlight the triumph of the human spirit from people most vulnerable to the tests of time. Her shorts include stories of resilience of Liberian women and children refugees in Ghana; three generations of Black families in an urban neighborhood; and a film ethnography of stories from folklore started by Zora Neale Hurston in Alabama's AfricaTown.