The Portland Black Film Festival presents a 35mm print of this Jamaa Fanaka classic!

PENITENTIARY (1979) Jamaa Fanaka uncompromising masterpiece about prison life! A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone (Leon Isaac Kennedy) gets in a fight with two bikers, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang. This is one of the most powerful films to come out of the "L.A. Rebellion" film movement!