Artist
Sean Saifa Wall

Project Title
Letters to an Unborn Son

Grant Amount
$1,500

Website
http://saifaemerges.com/

Project Description

Letters to an Unborn Son is a documentary film project about the relationship Sean Wall has with his father communicated through his father’s letters from prison. In 1989, Willis Wall was taken into custody by the New York Police Department. He was jailed at Riker’s Island in New York City for almost a year and a half before he was sent to prison in upstate New York where he would eventually die from AIDS. This documentary is not only about his journey through the New York State prison system, but the lasting impact his incarceration had on Sean as well as the people he harmed prior to incarceration. By responding to his letters from prison twenty-five years later, Sean is initiating a conversation about growing up intersex, addressing the cycles of violence in his family, undoing toxic masculinity, and healing from trauma.