Yalobusha Jail Has Role In Documentary

Filming In Cramped Quarters – Director Joe York (right) and Matthew Graves shoot a scene from “Mississippi Innocence” at the Yalobusha County Jail. Actor Omar Gordon (left), a graduate student at Ole Miss, portrays a man wrongly jailed for 15 years.

Director Joe York (left) watches the monitor as filmmaker Matthew Graves shoots through the old-style bars at the Yalobusha County Jail.

By Jack Gurner
Reporter

WATER VALLEY – The Yalobusha County Jail will make its movie debut portraying the Noxubee County Jail in the documentary film “Mississippi Innocence.”

The film, produced by the Media and Documentary Projects Center at Ole Miss, tells the story of two men released from prison after spending a combined 30 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit.

The Yalobusha jail was chosen for the film project because it is the only facility producers could find with old-fashioned jail cells. “We were looking for a jail with bars and this is the only one left in the area,” said Joe York, director of the documentary.

York and Matthew Graves, also a filmmaker with the center, shot video sequences Wednesday afternoon in the front area of the jail with actor Omar Gordon, an Ole Miss graduate student.

Gordon, dressed in orange prison clothing, pretended to write a letter for one scene as the filmmakers adjusted lights and camera angles in the cramped quarters.

Gordon plays Kennedy Brewer who along with Levon Brooks was convicted of separate child murders in Noxubee County. New evidence, which includes DNA testing and a confession, has identified the actual perpetrator in both cases. The two, who were represented by the Innocence Project, were cleared during a hearing in 2008.

The sequences shot in the Yalobusha jail will appear on screen for only a short time, but will be integral to telling the story, according to the filmmakers.  

“Mississippi Innocence” will be shown at a special screening during the Oxford Film Festival in February. The film features interviews with John Grisham and Innocence Project founders Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck.

The film will play on Friday, Feb. 11, beginning at 5:30 p.m. and at 7 p.m. and again on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Malco Theater in Oxford.

For more information about the Oxford Film Festival, go to http://www.oxfordfilmfest.com/