Lipscomb LIFE student featured in Nashville Film Fest Doc on Saturday, April 17

Janel Shoun | 04/16/2010

The public is invited to see a free Nashville Film Festival showing of a documentary featuring Cyntoia Brown, one of Lipscomb University’s students in the LIFE Program for inmates at the Tennessee Prison for Women (TPFW).

Sentenced for Life: Cyntoia's Story will air Saturday, April 17, at 4 p.m. at the Green Hills Regal Cinema. The final cut of the documentary is slated to air on the PBS Independent Lens series this fall.

The LIFE (Lipscomb Initiative for Education) program allows up to 30 students each semester to enroll in a liberal arts course held on-site at the Tennessee Prison for Women and study alongside 30 inmates of the prison. The mix of students and specifically designed coursework provides academic and character-building benefits for both students at the prison and students from campus.

“Cyntoia is a great student in many ways—she is inquisitive and passionate about learning and she also demonstrates intellectual leadership in our classes. She is certainly one of the brightest students that I have taught,” said Laura Lake Smith, assistant professor of art and art history, one of the Lipscomb faculty who has taught Cyntoia.

Reprinted below is summary and critique of the film, written by Jack Silverman and printed by The Nashville Scene on April 15, 2010:

Sentenced for Life: Cyntoia's Story

by Jack Silverman

That any girl can be facing life in prison for a crime she committed at age 16 is mind-boggling enough. But as the circumstances of Nashvillian Cyntoia Brown's case become clear, her sentence seems even more incomprehensible. There's no denying the violence of the crime: Brown shot a john she claims she thought was reaching for a gun.

As Dan Birman's documentary shows, however, it's difficult to understand why Brown was tried as an adult and how the murder could have been premeditated. Nashville's juvenile justice system allowed the filmmaker generous access to Brown, and the footage is compelling and heartbreaking. Particularly devastating are the early interviews, which show that Brown was clearly still a child — not to mention a victim of physical and sexual abuse for as long as she could remember.

Birman's film is still a work in progress. (The title likely will be changed to Me Facing Life: Cyntoia's Story.) It's a project of Independent Television Service (ITVS), best known for its Emmy-winning Independent Lens series on PBS. This screening at 4 p.m. Saturday, April 17, is presented by ITVS' Community Cinema series, which presents preview screenings and discussions of Independent Lens films monthly at Nashville Public Library. Birman, Ellenette Washington (Brown's mother), Vanderbilt forensic psychiatrist Dr. James Walker and Kathryn Evans (an attorney who worked on Brown's case) will participate in a post-film panel discussion. The screening is free and open to the public.