Film maker Nathan Fagan told David Hennessy about Inside, The Valley Sings his short animated documentary about the effects of solitary confinement which is still used in US prisons.
Dublin filmmaker Nathan Fagan’s Oscar- qualified animated documentary Inside, The Valley Sings looks at the lasting effects of solitary confinement, something that is still used as a form of punishment in US prisons.
Inside, The Valley Sings won the Best Animated Short Film award at Dublin International Film Festival and more recently the Jury Award for Best Short Documentary at the Coronado Island Film Festival.
The film gives an insight into the inner worlds created by those who endured years alone in spaces built from memory, imagination, and fragments of hope.
It reveals how the mind both fractures and fights to survive the void.
Fagan brings audiences into the psychological terrain of isolation where silence is a weapon, time dissolves, and the smallest human connection becomes an anchor to sanity.
The audience hears about the tedium, loneliness and psychological despair of long-term solitary confinement from three people who have experienced it themselves.
Kiana Calloway was convicted of first degree murder in 1997 and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. He was 16 years old. He served 17 years in prison. In that time he spent 9 years in solitary. On his release he became an advocate for ending solitary confinement.
In 1976 Sunny Jacobs was wrongfully sentenced to death for murder. Nearly 17 years after her arrest, her conviction was overturned and she was released. She spent five years in solitary confinement on Death Row. After her release, she campaigned for the wrongfully imprisoned and worked for the abolition of the death penalty.
Frank De Palma spent 22 years in solitary confinement. He was released in 2018 after 43 years of incarceration. He was 62 years old. After his release he faced homelessness, health issues and psychological issues. Despite this, he continues to speak out against solitary.
Named a Rising Star by Screen International in 2025, Nathan Fagan is an award-winning Irish writer and director whose work has already garnered recognition on the global stage.
A two-time IFTA nominee, Fagan’s films have received numerous accolades, including his short Flicker, co-directed with Luke Daly, which won the Grand Prix Award at the Cork International Film Festival and was longlisted for an Oscar®, and earned an IFTA nomination.
His film Skin to Skin premiered on Nowness, won Best Short Film at the Emerging Director Awards, and received a Cannes YDA nomination.
With Inside, The Valley Sings, Fagan now takes another career-defining step, with the film officially positioned as an Oscar® contender.
Nathan chatted to The Irish World about the film.
What inspired Inside, The Valley Sings?
“I think my interest in solitary confinement and the intense psychological experience of it started a very long time ago.
“I came across an essay by a man who had spent about 30 years in solitary.
“It was a very interesting essay because, probably like a lot of people, that just completely opened my eyes up to the idea of solitary confinement as this very particular form of punishment and psychological torture.
“What was really interesting to me about the essay was it covered a lot of the psychological suffering and hell of solitary but what was interesting about it as well was he pointed out how your relationship with time completely changes when you have no sensory input, when you’re completely isolated like that.
“It was something that just knocked around in my head for a really long time but I had never really found an opportunity to do anything with it.
“Then during COVID when things slowed down a bit, I started kind of developing the idea for the project.”
What was the experience of talking to these people who had experienced it like? I was taken aback by Frank saying he had spent 22 years in solitary. Were you taken aback at times?
“Yeah, absolutely.
“Some of the stories were very surprising.
“It’s quite rare to speak to people who spent that long in solitary and have been released.
“There are people who do decades and decades in solitary but typically they would either be still incarcerated, some of them don’t survive. That’s the truth of it.
“Frank’s story was quite rare in that he’s been released so his story really surprised me.
“Most times you make a documentary, you go in with some ideas in your head about what the stories are going to be and then they’re completely different really.
“It was really fascinating.
“I think the stories were quite inspiring and really eye opening but also very honest and very difficult stories to recount.
“Before we recorded any interviews, I had long conversations with all three of them before we built a relationship through phone calls.
“That relationship has kind of continued as well.
“I’m still in touch with Frank and Kiana.”
All three, upon release, went on to speak out against this torture?
“Absolutely, it’s kind of incredible really that after their experiences, they’re trying to use their voice and their story to push for changes in legislation.
“It’s really interesting.
“One of the subjects Sunny very unfortunately passed away last summer.
“She was quite a well known activist.
“She had spent five years on Death Row.
“She was this amazing force for pushing for changes in the laws surrounding a lot of things.
“She was a big advocate for ending the death penalty in the United States and things like that.
“Really incredible person.”
Speaking of the death penalty. Like the death penalty, solitary confinement is still a thing that exists in American when other progressive countries seem to have left them behind..
“I suppose like a lot of people, I have my opinions but with the film, even though it’s exploring the US prison system as a filmmaker, I never really feel like I can really speak to it in terms of the policy or the institutional level of it.
“But I do think the stories speak for themselves.
“I think a lot of countries, say in Europe for example, solitary confinement can be used but there’s a huge amount of restriction around the length of time you can use it.
“The US is quite unique in its use of solitary confinement and it’s probably worth saying not everyone’s experience of solitary is going to be the same because there’s different uses of it.
“In some US prisons there’s segregation, there’s different things where people might choose to go into solitary but I suppose these stories are about the use of it as a form of punishment.
“I think the thing that always never made much sense to me but I found particularly disturbing was that they really try to make the cells themselves as stark as possible so they really have no access to any sort of stimulation.
“Sunny had told me that when she was on Death Row she had literally no contact with any other humans except for the guards occasionally through the slot in the door and this went on for five years.
“She could get one book every couple of months and the book would be decided for her so she kept getting copies of the Bible basically.
“I suppose that tells you a lot because okay, if the logic and rationale for secluding certain prisoners is to protect maybe the rest of the general population, you can give those people some kind of access to books or media or something like that.
“That seems to be very restricted.
“I think it kind of says a lot about the use of it as a form of punishment really.”
Frank also speaks about having no concept of time. He finds on being let out that he became an old man in there..
“Yeah, his story is particularly harrowing but there’s a lot of similarities between all the stories and all the people I spoke to.
“What’s really sad really is Frank, by the end of it had developed essentially agoraphobia so he was afraid to leave his cell.
“By the end of it, they just stopped letting him out because he didn’t want to but also they didn’t want to bother trying to convince him to leave for his shower or whatever.
“His story is pretty shocking.
“Another detail he told me was that at a certain point he preferred to live in complete darkness.
“He was in a pretty bad place psychologically by the end of those years.
“He used to use a towel to cover up the single light in his room and he said that when they finally came to take him out one of them went to move the towel and the towel disintegrated in their fingers because it had been there so long.
“He lived in darkness for a couple of years.
“It just seems kind of barbaric that that could happen in a US prison.
“He did 40 years in total in prison or close to 40 years so he was incarcerated most of his life.
“I’ve spoken to him a lot and I continue to speak to him occasionally.
“He is a very wise man who recognises that he made mistakes when he was younger but I don’t think anyone really deserves that.
“I just don’t see the value in isolating someone like that for that long and then to release somebody into the world.”
He also speaks about how it robs them of hope and that he would sooner shoot someone dead and kill them than put them in solitary as to just kill them would be kinder..
“I suppose I did have questions around leaving it on that note because that’s sort of the final note of the film to an extent is his direct plea.
“But in the context of the film and in the context of stories told, it felt like that was the right way to end it.
“I suppose what he’s doing is he’s speaking from the heart but also I think he’s speaking to common sense as well basically hoping that there will be changes in the legislation.
“He’s continued to tell his story and speak out.
“All three of them, they’re voices for those who don’t have a voice, who are still stuck in solitary.
“Hope is a thing that gets lost in there but it’s amazing the resilience of humans to survive things like that.”
The subjects also speak about how they coped with it, the fantasies they developed which took them outside of that tiny cell, back to their families etc..
“I think that’s actually the main point of the film to an extent as well.
“Obviously we’re exploring what, essentially, is kind of a human rights issue but it’s told very much through exploring the ways in which people can retreat into their imaginative worlds to survive.
“That was always going to be a big thread in the film because it’s certainly true to their experience.
“I think it tells us a lot about our resilience as humans but also I think it was important.
“I’m sure some people have preconceptions about people who are in prison for long sentences but in reality, we’re all humans and we share hopes and dreams and I think what’s really great about that aspect of their stories is it speaks to how we’re all connected in terms of our humanity.”
What reactions have you got screening the film?
“It’s been really interesting.
“I think one of the big things that has been interesting is that a lot of people weren’t aware of solitary confinement in this light.
“I think we all know what solitary confinement is a little bit, even people who have no experience with the prison system.
“But a lot of people didn’t really think about what it would be like to be in a six by nine cell for five months or even a month.
“I think that’s probably impacted people the most.
“The responses have been really strong.
“It’s about human stories, it’s about emotion, it’s not really about an issue per se so I think mainly audiences are just connecting with the stories and the people.
“Our premiere was at Sheffield Docfest and what was really interesting was there was some Iranians in the audience and I think for some of them, it was actually quite confronting and difficult to watch because some of them knew people who are currently imprisoned in Iran for opposition to the government.
“The response is different from different audiences because some people might actually have more direct experience with solitary confinement or incarceration.
“It’s been great.
“A couple of nice things as well.
“It’s currently part of a travelling festival around Ukraine as well.
“Hopefully the message in the film about resilience and the power of the human imagination resonates with people there.”
Is it meaningful that Sunny, as you say has passed away, but her story continues to resonate via the film?
“Absolutely.
“It is the power of story and I think what I love as well about documentary in general and all types of storytelling, fictional and documentary is it’s people being able to tell their stories and connect with people like that.
“Sunny did incredible work.
“She did a huge amount of work for the wrongfully convicted around the world and, as I said, the abolition of death penalty.
“I was really grateful that she trusted me with this part of her story.
“I was really fortunate to get to know her because she was just this incredibly optimistic and positive person which always surprised me.
“When you consider what she lived through, it’s kind of incredible so very sad to hear of her passing.
“It was great.
“Actually we were at a festival in Tokyo where we won the Oscar qualifying award last summer.
“I got to dedicate the award to Sunny because she’d only passed away the week before.
“It was nice to be able to kind of acknowledge her really.”
Sonia ‘Sunny’ Jacobs and her husband Jesse Tafero were convicted Philip Black, a Florida State Trooper and Donald Irwin, a visiting Canadian constable in 1976. She was sentenced to death but this was changed to life. However, her conviction was overturned in 1992. However Tafero had already been executed in 1990.
“Her story is really fascinating.
“It’s actually been told quite a few times.
“She’s had plays about her and there was a movie in the United States with Susan Sarandon playing her at one stage.
“Her story has been told quite a lot.
“I obviously was focusing just on solitary confinement but it is really incredible.
“She wasn’t bitter or kind of worn down by her experience.
“She just used her experience to try to kind of push for change.
“It was kind of incredible really, her story.”
What about Kiana and Frank, how are they now?
“Frank’s been out for a number of years now.
“He’s obviously struggled with the lingering effects of prolonged isolation and mental health issues.
“It’s kind of incredible.
“He’s kind of an activist around ending solitary confinement.
“I think it’s kind of amazing that he continues to try to tell his story but also just be a voice for the voiceless.
“And then Kiana Calloway is obviously busy as well and seems to be doing his own types of activism.”
What does it mean to be qualified for an Oscar? It must be gratifying particularly as the film aims to being attention to this practice..
“Yeah, absolutely.
“That’s the thing.
“When we decided to make the film, our goal was just to tell these stories.
“You obviously want to reach audiences but it’s been great to see it get the response it’s had and pick up momentum.
“It’s incredible to get qualified for an Oscar and to be considered for it but I think for all of us, we just recognise it as a really good opportunity to spread more awareness about the issue of solitary confinement and hopefully start great conversations.
“Their stories are resonating with people.
“I think that’s the main thing.”
