Filmed over seven years, with rare access inside America’s largest and most notorious maximum-security prison, Leaving Angola tells the story of Justin Singleton, a man serving life without parole for murder, and Derek Moss, a young father offered a chance at early release through a pioneering re-entry program at the Louisiana State Penitentiary – known as Angola.
An inmate minister and vocational mentor, Justin teaches Derek trade skills while guiding him away from the paths that could lead him back to prison. For Derek, whose own father is serving 25 years to life, Justin becomes both mentor and father figure. But when Derek is released, the past proves difficult to escape, and neither man’s journey turns out as expected.
Leaving Angola is an exploration of the possibilities and limits of change – a story about confronting one’s past, discovering one’s true potential in an unlikely place, and ultimately, a story of hope in a place designed to extinguish it.
The two most important days in a person’s life is the day they were born, and the day they found out why.
