Producer's Notes

A Hard Straight begins with the introduction of the three parolees featured in the film. In a chronological narrative, the film interweaves their stories as they attempt to construct new lives. We see them from the ecstatic moment of their first taste of freedom, to the inevitable frustrations, joys, and also, banality of life outside of prison.

The underlying tension of the film lies in the question of whether the characters will remain free or be re-incarcerated. Statistically, the odds are stacked against a successful re-integration. Throughout the film, we see the steady stream of obstacles—financial, legal, and emotional—thrown in their path, and the various ways in which they deal with these problems. And as we see their stories unfold, we also witness their personal transformation: all three marked by the prison experience and entering society with profound fear and uncertainty of what lies ahead, but all three ending in quite different places. A Hard Straight is an intimate look at a crucial time in the lives of these men and women, exploring the issues of what the re-integration process is like for a formerly incarcerated individual and what it takes to stay straight after doing time in the penitentiary.

The film follows the classic three-act structure, beginning with an introduction to the characters, their situations, and their respective problems. Regina Allen’s tearful reunion with her family belies her underlying insecurities about their future together. Thrilled to have her mom home, her oldest daughter, Tara, nonetheless has reservations about what will happen next. “If she screws up again, that’s it,” she says on her way to the bus station to pick up Regina. “I’m not going through all this again.” For Regina, she must walk the fine line between being there for her children and overcoming the drug use that has led her back to prison twice before.

Aaron Shepard is sitting alone at the San Rafael bus terminal, awaiting his bus to San Francisco. In contrast to Regina’s joyous release into the arms of his family, Aaron is completely alone. Boarding the bus, $3.00 in hand for bus fare, then crossing the bridge into San Francisco, he talks about his future. “They gave me $200 gate money and $180 more on the books from working… What’s a person gonna do living in San Francisco with $380 dollars? It’s hard, man. They give you just enough money to set you up to come back.” We then see Aaron in the parole office, where he asks his agent for help in locating housing, only to be told that all state housing is full. “If I can just get a break …” he says after the meeting. But Aaron’s big break remains elusive throughout his story and the two parole violations that return him to prison.

The film then introduces the third character, a Hispanic gang member known as Smiley, who has known no other real life than the gang and no other real family than his homies. He craves normal life—going to work, coming home to eat dinner, falling asleep in front of the television. “And we don’t have to worry if the cops come up in here,” he says, cozying up with his girlfriend on the couch, “we got nothing to hide.” This idyllic scene soon gives way a life back on the streets with his gang, an episode of homelessness with his pregnant girlfriend, and a world turned upside down by Smiley’s internal conflict between going straight and staying alive.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the film is the story of the emotional trajectory of the characters. As they tell it, the most difficult part of the re-entry process is shedding ‘the penitentiary mentality’ and adjusting to the rules of society. The film shows the difficulties of the transition from living in an isolated environment marked by severe regimentation, violence, racism, and constant degradation to living on the outside. The film also explores the characters’ past—specifically, the conditions that led them to commit their crimes.

A Hard Straight chronicles a profound turning point in the lives these men and women who are trying to construct a life when for the duration of their incarceration, life was constructed for them. Inherent in these stories is a dramatic narrative arc, beginning with their release, fueled by their attempts to survive and deal with the difficulties of re-integration, and ending with either a life outside or on a track to re-incarceration. In the end, we learn that the experience of the formerly incarcerated individual is incredibly difficult. Just finding a job and housing, with the limited resources most men and women who were formerly incarcerated have at their disposal upon release, is hard enough. But, in addition, one must contend with the inner struggles, the family conflicts, and the societal clashes that haunt anyone who has done time in the penitentiary.

Working on this project has been an extraordinary experience, both in becoming acquainted with the subjects and seeing firsthand the incredibly fragile and precarious existence people lead in post-prisons lives. Our greatest hope for the film is that it conveys to the audience, with poignancy, the subjects as fellow human beings—with hopes, memories, flaws, and the basic desire to lead a life of freedom—and the real difficulties as they attempt to do so.

Character profiles of key people in the film

REGINA ALLEN. Regina was released in 2001 from Valley State Prison in Chowchilla. Regina is a 42-year-old African-American mother of five living in the Visitation Valley area of San Francisco with her oldest daughter, Tara Canaris, and two of her other children, Taylor, age 6, and Ashley, age 11. Regina has been in and out of juvenile facilities since her early teens and has served two terms in state prison, the first for forgery and the most recent for shoplifting. Regina has a history of methamphetamine abuse. A former member of the San Francisco Carpenters’ Union, she was injured on the job before going to prison and is currently on disability.

Regina is an amazingly open and candid subject. She comes across as a sincere and intelligent woman with a strong devotion to her children and her family. She has a real sense of joy for life and while she is adamant about not returning to prison, she is drawn to certain elements in her life (partying, bad relationships, etc.) that got her into trouble in the first place.

RICHARD SALAZAR. Richard “Smiley” Salazar served a seven-year sentence at Centinela State Prison near San Diego for gang-related robbery and kidnapping. He is a 31-year-old Latino native of Los Angeles and will be relocating to the San Fernando Valley. Goro met Smiley through a teacher who had worked with him in a writing program called “Inside Circle” and he has proven to be a prolific writer—we received nearly a dozen letters from him, none of them less than three notebook paper pages filled front and back. He has been doing a lot of tattoo work in prison and may try to get a job as a tattoo artist.

Smiley is a rather deceptive nickname—Richard is an intimidating man and has a vigorous dislike for white people. He looks very young and fresh-faced, but once he speaks you get a sense of his intensity and his depth of experience. In spite of his roughness, he has introspective nature and is very intent on figuring out how he got where he is and how he can lead a different life.

AARON SHEPARD.“ Shep” has spent more time in prison on parole violations than he has for his original sentence of robbery. He is a 37-year-old African American and a San Francisco native. Throughout the course of production, he has returned to prison twice on parole violations.

Shep is an extremely likable, friendly, and outgoing guy—traits that make him a reliable “middleman” for a variety of transactions among his “associates.” He has had a hopeful outlook for the future after each of his releases, and feels that he only needs things to go his way this time to make it. In many ways, his story is most typical of the “revolving door” so prevalent in the parole system today.

A HARD STRAIGHT Production Staff

Director: Goro Toshima. After graduating from Colby College in 1991, Goro Toshima put his degree in English Literature/East Asian studies to use and became involved in media production. After producing short news pieces on American culture for the Japanese network NHK, he entered the graduate program in documentary film at Stanford University. There, he directed three short films, which played at various film festivals throughout the country. Since graduating in 1997, he has worked with veteran documentarians Lourdes Portillo and Loni Ding.

Producer: Lindsay Sablosky. Lindsay Sablosky has production and editing credits on several feature-length documentaries and has worked on numerous PBS series including Frontline, Season by Season, and Independent View, as well as the A&E cable series Biography. She is the co-producer of Daddy & Papa, a documentary about gay fatherhood by Johnny Symons, which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. She is Associate Producer of Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay, a documentary by Eric Slade chronicling the life of the founder of the American gay rights movement, which premiered at the 2001 San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

Editor: Kim Roberts. Kim Roberts is a Bay Area editor and filmmaker. She was the editor of Daughter from Danang, directed by Gail Dolgen and Vincente Franco, which won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and for which she has been nominated for an Emmy Award. She also edited the award-winning documentary Daddy & Papa, directed by Johnny Symons. She was second editor on Long Night’s Journey into Day, a 2001 Academy Award nominee and winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival.