A Film Screening &

Director Panel with

UnCommon Law 

Sunday, August 24, 2025 | 12:30–2:30 PM 

The New Parkway Theater, 474 24th Street, Oakland, CA 94612 

Join UnCommon Law for a special screening and live panel discussion featuring three short films by formerly incarcerated filmmakers whose work challenges dominant narratives and centers love, healing, and resilience behind and beyond the prison walls. 

We’ll screen: 
I Do by Rahsaan Thomas 
Finding Má by Thanh Tran 
Unhoused and Unseen by Dante D. Jones 

Following the screening, hear directly from the directors in a panel discussion about the power of storytelling to disrupt systems, reconnect families, and humanize people impacted by incarceration. 

About the films: 

  • I Do (by Rahsaan Thomas): An online dating site for meeting people in prison brings a Black woman to answer the prayers of a lonely incarcerated person. I DO is a push back to the narrative that people in prison aren’t worthy of love while also showing the reality of romance through the bars. 

  • Finding Má (by Thanh Tran): After 20 years apart, an Amerasian Vietnamese and Black family shattered by the foster care and prison systems reunite to heal old wounds and rebuild their family, starting with finding their unhoused mother in the streets of Sacramento. 

  • Unhoused and Unseen (by Dante Jones): Two incarcerated survivors of homelessness tell their stories of struggles, resilience and triumph through the cycle of the unhoused-to-prison pipeline. 

About the Directors:  

Dante D. Jones: Dante D. Jones, 42 years old from South Central Los Angeles was recently released from San Quentin after serving 17 years of a 39-to-life sentence. He was granted freedom under California’s P.C. 1170(d) resentencing law. During his incarceration, he became a passionate advocate for the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, using journalism, photography, and video storytelling to reshape public perception. As a leader at the award-winning San Quentin News, he created dozens of impactful articles and films—including the documentary Unhoused and Unseen, a top finalist in the San Quentin Film Festival. He also organized transformative events inside the prison, working with correctional staff and state officials to foster dialogue and build solutions around systemic issues. Now free, Dante is dedicated to amplifying the voices of incarcerated/formerly incarcerated people and continuing the work of justice and humanization through media and advocacy. 

 

Rahsaan Thomas: Rahsaan grew up in the notorious Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. His choices in the face of redlining, over policing, gun violence, single parent home, colorism, racism, and a drug epidemic, landed him in prison with multiple life sentences. After appearing in United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, Q-Ball, and 26.2 to Life, he developed a love for filmmaking, which led to directing Friendly Signs, a short doc about the fight to make prison more inclusive for incarcerated deaf people. It won an Advocacy Award from Superfest Disability Documentary Film Festival. Also, he co-produced, What These Walls Won’t Hold, directed by Adamu Chan, which won the San Francisco Film Festival and premiered on PBS America Reframed. Rahsaan and Brian “Asey” Gonsoulin produced More Than Basketball viewed over 300,000 times on Youtube. He is best known as “New York” on the Pulitzer Prize finalist podcast, Ear Hustle. He paroled 33 years early, on Feb. 8, 2023 thanks to a commutation and is currently working on films in collaboration with incarcerated co-directors. Plus, he a consulting producer for Crime and Punishment, directed by Lynn Novick Additionally, Rahsaan is the co-founder and co-director of the first ever film festival held inside a state prison, the San Quentin Film Festival.  

 

Thanh Tran: Thanh is an Amerasian-Vietnamese and Black filmmaker, music artist, and community organizer from Sacramento. While incarcerated at San Quentin, he co-founded Uncuffed, an award-winning podcast, and ForwardThis Productions, a trailblazing film collective. He is also the co-founder of New Krma Collective, a creative label and mutual aid network that supports directly impacted artists through music, film, and activism. Thanh now directs Finding Má, a feature documentary tracing his family’s search for their unhoused mother after years of separation through the foster care and prison systems. He serves as a Program Manager for the San Quentin Film Festival managing the Returning Filmmaker Fellowship and sits on advisory councils for New Breath Foundation, Asian Prisoner Support Committee, and Uncuffed. Through storytelling, advocacy, and music, he works to shift dominant narratives around race, incarceration, and migration. His work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation, and Creative Capital to name a few.