The Odyssey Project's Fundraiser
The Odyssey Project
With matters of racial justice dividing the nation, a new film delivers a story of hope, connection, and true change.
This documentary has been In production for 10 years. We now need finishing funds to get this story out in 2025.
Funds raised will be used to finalize production shooting, development of edit storyboards and design of the impact campaign.
Production Company and Film Team
FILM SYNOPSIS: Four incarcerated teens of color embark on a transformational journey through an experimental theater program. Working alongside undergraduate students as peers, they create and perform their own adaptation of the Homeric epic poem, The Odyssey. Following their performance, the film intimately chronicles their decade-long struggle to rebuild their lives and escape the grip of the criminal justice system. Interweaving personal stories, expert analysis, and the fight for racial and criminal justice reform—including a landmark case under the California Racial Justice Act—the film and its groundbreaking impact campaign serve as a catalyst for one of the defining civil rights movements of our time.
ISSUE OVERVIEW: The criminalization of youth of color is a driving force behind America’s destructive mass incarceration system, resulting in the largest prison population in the world. Young men of color who become entangled in this system often find themselves trapped with little hope of escape. This systemic injustice, fueled by racial bias, has proven deeply entrenched even as racial justice movements strive to address it.
In response, the California State Legislature recently introduced a groundbreaking tool: the California Racial Justice Act (RJA). Designed to confront racial bias within the state’s criminal justice system, the RJA allows defense attorneys to challenge arrests, charges, and sentencing if they can prove that race played a role. Once considered a landmark act, the RJA faces relentless opposition and its very survival is now in jeopardy.
IMPACT CAMPAIGN: The Odyssey Project impact campaign is designed to create lasting change through strategic partnerships and innovative engagement tools. Our impact team has developed a proven impact system and revolutionary impact platform and is partnering with national and regional organizations to amplify efforts in criminal justice reform and racial justice advocacy. For California's Racial Justice Act, the film will support efforts to get motions heard on present and retroactive cases across the state.
The impact team has already driven measurable change, securing a top defense attorney leading to a precedent-setting legal victory and facilitating a groundbreaking racial disparity study with UC Santa Barbara and legal experts. Building on this success, we are expanding these efforts by partnering with community organizations to launch additional studies and drive systemic change.
The Odyssey Project fuses powerful storytelling with real-world action, advancing racial justice, criminal justice reform, and policy change.
The video below is a rough cut sample of the opening 10 minutes of the film.