Art, Redemption and Resilience Take Center Stage at Redemption Time Screening

How a jazz concert at The Outpost set in motion an unlikely creative collaboration

When jazz violinist Christian Howes was serving time in prison, he found inspiration in the words of a poet he had never met.

Decades later, that poet—New Mexican Jimmy Santiago Baca—joined Howes in person at a screening of Redemption Time at Nob Hill’s Guild Cinema in May. The film tells the story of how the two formerly incarcerated men transformed their lives through art, redemption and resilience.

Directed by David Gonzales, Redemption Time blends performance, photography and memoir to explore the parallel journeys of Baca and Howes.

Before the film, artists reflected on how creativity sustained them through incarceration. Community members–including local poets and formerly incarcerated individuals–joined the conversation, sharing poems and personal stories shaped by hardship. A palpable sense emerged that shared creativity lends people resilience, helping them break free from their internal prisons.

While serving time in a maximum security prison at age 21 for drug possession, Baca taught himself to read and began writing poetry. He was released after five years and went on to become a critically acclaimed author of poetry and memoir.

Featured artists take the stage on film and in person at The Guild Cinema. (Photo: Christian Howes)

Howes also spent part of his young adulthood in prison for selling drugs, yet found ways to nurture his musical roots within that confinement. He was deeply impacted by discovering Baca’s poetry while in prison.

“Jimmy is my hero,” Howes said.

Today, Howes is a world-renowned jazz violinist, teacher, and composer who continues to find inspiration in the poems of his friend, Baca.

The friendship at the heart of Redemption Time began with a remarkable coincidence.

About a decade ago, Gonzales was working with Baca on another project when the poet excitedly told him about a jazz violinist he had seen perform the night before at The Outpost Performance Space. During the concert, the musician told the audience that Baca’s poetry had changed his life.

Gonzales immediately realized that Baca was describing his longtime friend, Howes.

“I called Chris, put him on speakerphone, and I said, Chris, I’m with Jimmy… Jimmy, this is the violinist!”

Director David Gonzales, who spoke to us from his home in New York. (Courtesy photo)

That conversation sparked a creative partnership that would eventually become Redemption Time.

“The three of us hung out for four days straight,” Gonzales recalled.

“My job was really to find the story and let it be a balance between these two very different individuals,” Gonzales said. Through years of workshops, Zoom meetings over the pandemic, and copious interviews, Gonzales found points of intersection in their stories. He also worked with Howes to craft music that would shape the narrative into a live performance. It was filmed in a single take.

Baca and Howes share the creative spotlight as they perform in the film. (Screenshot from film)

Test screenings brought another element into the project–community members who had been in prisons or who worked in reentry programs gave positive feedback about the film’s impact. “You meet people who’ve been in terrible situations and come through the other side, and if the film supports who they are and what they’re doing–just gives them a jolt of vitamins–that gives me motivation to keep going,” Gonzales said.

The project evolved to include plans to bring the film to prisons and schools rather than film festivals. Edovo, a learning platform for incarcerated people, has been key to the film’s distribution.

Executive producer Gloria Ann Evans, a former nurse who remains engaged in public health issues, also spoke at the event and emphasized the connection between childhood trauma and incarceration.

Howes beams with his idol, Baca, at the screening. (Photo: Christian Howes)

How did these men find art amidst the violence of life and the “coffin quiet,” as Baca described the nights behind bars?

For Baca, imprisonment brought an unexpected sense of revelation. He began to see poetry everywhere: in a pigeon perched on the barbed wire and a deep connection to his Chicano and indigenous ancestry, made all the more vivid by his imprisonment.

For Howes, music emerged from the rhythms of prison life: men whose conversation was like rap, the prisoners with whom he was allowed to play music, and the soulful singing voice he heard while in solitary confinement.

“In our brokenness thrives life, thrives light, thrives the essence of our strength,” Baca says in the film.

At the Guild Cinema, that message resonated with personal stories of art as both a refuge and a path forward.

Tickets are available for a worldwide, livestream screening of Redemption Time tomorrow, June 16, featuring a live chat and post-film discussion. Additionally, the director invites you to host an event and bring the film to your organization.