Songs from the Hole

At 15, he took a life. Three days later, his brother’s life was taken. A documentary visual album, Songs from the Hole follows James “JJ ’88” Jacobs through a musical opus of hip hop and soul, inspired by his innermost struggles as a person who has both committed and experienced violent harm, as he serves a double-life prison sentence. Fifteen years into a 40-years-to-life sentence, Jacobs has turned to music to explore his feelings about his circumstances. The film interweaves the collective storytelling of its nonfiction participants with imagined representations of memories, dreams, and spiritual dialogues set to its protagonist/co-creator’s original music. Variety says, “director Contessa Gayles combines nakedly vulnerable reflections from Jacobs with poetic recreations for a deeply affecting experience, both musically and dramatically.”