Independent Lens: Sansón and Me

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From Pelican Bay State Prison, Sansón’s life is defined by borders—between Mexico and the U.S., fact and fiction, personal choice and systemic force.

Set in rural California and Mexico’s Pacific coast, Director Rodrigo Reyes' documentary is a moving portrait of the unlikely friendship of two Mexican migrants, told within the frame of the dramatic clash between systemic forces and personal choices that envelop young, incarcerated men of color in America. Independent Lens: Sansón’ and Me airs Tuesday, September 19 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Sansón’s life is defined by borders—between Mexico and the United States, between freedom and incarceration, between fact and fiction. While serving two life sentences for first-degree murder in Pelican Bay State Prison, Sansón grapples with the ways he has traversed these borders, moving from country to country, from rural California to solitary confinement, and from the truths of his life to the mythologies he’s created. A tale told through dramatic reenactments, Sansón and Me recreates a life of multilayered border crossing as told by Sansón to his interpreter-turned-friend, filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes. In vividly portraying Sansón’s life from orphaned Mexican child to American prisoner, Reyes reveals one man’s attempt at reconciling the things that have happened to him and the things he has brought on himself.