Showing Stories, Not Telling Them

Adam Kouraimi spent 19 years incarcerated and has been out for a little over a year and he ispassionate about video production. Adam’s videos help nonprofit organizations by documentingmaterial that will help individuals who have come home from prison with resources - similar tothis podcast! Adam’s passion for film has guided his path after coming home and changed theway he sees the world and the people around him. His goal is to show people throughvideography the stories behind incarcerated people and incarceration rather than just tell thesestories because he believes this is the best way to explain the concept and experience topeople who do not understand or relate. In this episode, Adam and our hosts discusscriminalization portrayal in the media, Adam’s passion for film, and how COVID has impactedhis videography experience.It is clear in this episode Adam’s creative mind and faith in other’spotential has helped Adam to persevere after coming home.

Resources/ Organizations

The Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP)
Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) at the University of Michigan
We have the most powerful tool at our fingertips when it comes to learning anything you want and it’s this bad boy right here (referring to his iphone)
The Small Business Administration
Legal Zoom - offer a set of services that help him as a business owner and provides one access to tutorials to help you learn
Youth Justice Fund
A Brighter Way
Movie Recommendation:
- Living on LOP (Loss of Privileges)
  - The whole series is geared towards individuals who have spent a lot of time in prison and under the circumstances of confinement, what lessons they have learned and how they utilized these lessons to survive in a COVID environment which is similar in a way to confinement inside prison.
  - Each episode is of a different formerly incarcerated individual discussing different topics

Important Quotes

“It’s tough but it’s coming along”
“In a nutshell real quick, movies changed my life, movies changed the way I see the world”
“I want to tell stories that have the potential to change people’s lives.”
“I truly believe that everyone has that spark of greatness in them, it just needs a platform to get out”
“You don’t see shows on TV that go to prisons actually making positive changes because it is not interesting to the main hype of entertainment and the news. News organizations paint every single individual convicted inside prisons as a monster. When you have 2, 3 generations of people growing up learning this same thing - being propagated - you create an entire bias surrounding incarceration”
“They use some of the most brutal imagery you can find but they don’t have any words to it - they hit you with that image first.”
This emphasis on images shows the impact these images have on people
“I never imagined how efficient one could be with this simple device”
“When I started working with the Youth Justice Fund my family grew”

Important Topics/Discussions

In film and in the media, prison is shown to be a brutal and monstrous place where only the worst people go. The media uses their ability to “show” harsh images of prison riots and guard attacks to portray a negative connotation of criminalized people. Adam is making it his goal to utilize his ability to film and “show” that incarcerated people are normal people and not the monsters often portrayed to mass audiences
Emphasizes the importance of setting deadlines and holding himself accountable

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Showing Stories, Not Telling Them

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