We were lucky to catch up with Rebecca Grace recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rebecca, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

It may seem strange that my most meaningful projects are filled with all the heart and high stakes of a contemporary masterpiece – and yet are seen by one judicial panel, then never again.

We at the nonprofit I founded (Complete Picture) tell the life-stories of people facing prison for nonviolent crimes. The intended audience for each meticulously created 20-minute documentary we make is just one person – the judge deciding that person’s fate. So much is at stake for the person facing prison. The weeks and months leading up to their sentencing day are brutal for them and their children, who often face foster care. And that means we truly put feeling and soul into each story we create, regardless that it will never be published.

So when one of our videos results in a “supervised release only” sentence – meaning zero prison time for a defendant – I can’t believe it. The joy, the relief, the hope – it’s like my heart is soaring, every time. But when a single mother who supports her four kids by working two jobs, is taking evening classes to get her degree, and rarely sleeps, is sentenced to years in prison for a nonviolent crime born out of desperation to just get by – well, it’s hard to describe the paralysis that overtakes me.

I heard once that we tend to relive our mistakes over and over again. This is true for me. The times I couldn’t help a deserving person avoid unjust prison time for small nonviolent crimes, haunt me as much as the successes fuel me. I find myself thinking about the civil rights movement, and how far it’s come, and how despite that progress, the oppression of people of color and the poor continues nearly uninhibited, tearing apart families and communities. As a witness to this truth, I feel it is my duty to those people to know and speak of their struggles and their pain; and to continue to tell their stories, especially when they are voiceless, locked behind bars.

But in the end, all that pain and struggle and those endless “what ifs?” – are all worth it. The risk of fruitless effort “gone to waste” – is simply a part of doing something meaningful. Because every time it goes right, it’s like another little spark catches that will someday become the flame that illuminates even the darkest corners of injustice. And that is why this project is meaningful to me.

Rebecca, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As a non-profit criminal justice reform advocacy organization, Complete Picture’s mission is to humanize individuals who are facing prison for non-violent crimes. This means that our little team of formerly incarcerated filmmakers go to the ends of the earth for our clients to create comprehensive and honest video portraits, empowering defendants to tell their full stories prior to being sentenced. This method of humanization, especially in a court room dominated by impersonal views and statistics, reframes and deepens the conversation by exposing a person’s complete human story through interviews with family, clergy, teachers, employers, counselors and doctors. The defendants we advocate for come from poor communities disproportionately incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons.

Every judge who has viewed a Complete Picture video has reconsidered the default of prison, weighing other options to offer a better outcome for everyone. 57% of our clients have had their prison sentences fully negated in favor of supervised release – a testament to the effectiveness of our work. Each impactful video we make promotes effective rehabilitative alternatives, disrupts the intergenerational cycle of imprisonment, helps hold families together, and to top it all off, even saves taxpayer money. Lives are changed when we specifically advocate for defendants who are integral providers to their families and in their community – especially when our clients have made great strides in improving their lives, choosing to be accountable, achieving and maintaining sobriety, finding therapy and pursuing educational goals.

In a Complete Picture sentencing video, the judge is introduced to more than the police report, which while may be valid, is just one perspective. Now, they also hear a child’s voice who needs their parent, or the plea of an elderly parent who is dependent on their child. The defendant tells their story in an unthreatening environment, in their own voice and in the voices of their loved ones. Over eight years we have perfected this interviewing process; we never rush them, or disregard their feelings, or give them scripted lines. Rather, the truth comes out in its purest form when over the course of our two-day shoots, through interviews with their family and community, the defendant sees that their experiences and perspectives do matter and will finally be explained. The defendants’ valid distrust of the legal system is slowly replaced with gratitude and hope.
Our videos don’t solely impact the sentence of their subject. For Judges, these stories plant a seed, a reminder that other defendants who stand before them also have complex mitigating circumstances, have achieved compelling transformations and have a responsibility to their families and communities that rely on them.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Put simply – all nonprofits need funding. This is a challenge when potential donors ask us to “scale” our work, to make it simpler, less comprehensive – to do it faster for less. We turn down funding opportunities to avoid this pitfall. I think the quality of our work not only makes us the north star for this new medium, but enables us to achieve true and meaningful results for the people we advocate for. In every story we work tirelessly to fully reveal our clients’ value, thereby reaching the hearts and the minds of those in power who are perpetuating, either consciously or unconsciously, a racially and socioeconomically inequitable justice system.
Cutting corners to tell our stories faster with less detail would lead only to disastrous results – oversimplification; dehumanization; and indeed, the continuation of the very cycle we hope to put an end to. As Maya Angelou wrote, “‎The desire to reach the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise and most possible.”

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Imagine that you live in a world where it’s illegal for artists to be paid and while you can create at will, your name is struck from your work. Everything you create is created for free and anonymously. Would you still do it?

I would! Because otherwise I would feel as though life were passing me by — and I couldn’t go on. I would fade away in the flames of existential depression. I create therefor I am!

That’s not to say that I haven’t fought tooth and nail to be paid as an artist. I monetized my art as a film editor – spending between 8 and 12 hours per day in a dark room by myself – for many years, solving story problems and really making performances shine. But I wasn’t happy.

Clarity came to me on one perfectly normal day during a lunch break while sitting in blinding sunlight, when I saw myself on my deathbed, reminiscing warmly on that great commercial I’d cut twenty years before.

A chill went down my spine.

It’s said that pain can be categorized into four quadrants – physical, mental, emotional and existential – the latter of which persists as long as the thirst for meaning in our lives goes unquenched.

That mundane day was oddly a turning point in my life. I realized I still had time to find a way to bring more depth to my “life’s work”. I started looking for a more meaningful way I could use my skills as a filmmaker.

It divided my work into two distinct phases – one where I work for money and recognition and one where I let my vision take over and create great things. From that, Complete Picture was born – my way of ensuring that I give something of meaning back to the world.

So, though it seems like I’m doing something generous, running a nonprofit, it’s actually a weird form of existential pain control. I guess you could say it’s a little selfish — but that’s up to interpretation.

With each video we create for a defendant, comes a feeling of warmth and wholeness – a sense that I have contributed something good. Even if it’s for an audience of one – the judge, and I’ll never really be able to rack up a bunch of likes or follows.

But that’s okay, because the value that others place on the things I create is separate from who am and why I do it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.completepicture.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/completepictureproject/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracerebecca
• Other: https://vimeo.com/762779047?share=copy