New Devils Sarah Souk

The Power of Film in Human Rights Work

The Power of Film in Human Rights Work

Sarah Soucek’s interest in human rights and the prison abolition movement was spurred by several visits to a youth correctional center for girls near Bard College, a private liberal arts campus in Red Hook, New York, where she earned her undergraduate degree.

Soucek accompanied a professor to teach art classes at the juvenile facility. In addition to providing the young people with resources, they also created a platform for them to sell their work after they were released from custody.

“That was just really simultaneously interesting and good work, while also kind of pushing me to further look into prison abolition and all these issues that we have in the country having to do with incarceration and mass incarceration,” she says.

Soucek’s interest in prison abolition was sharpened during her junior year in college, when she and fellow classmates worked with law students at the City University of New York on prisoners’ clemency applications. In an effort to give a fuller, more personal picture of the imprisoned individuals, she produced videos to go with the applications. 

“That’s when I started combining videos with human rights and advocacy work,” she said. ”Maybe the governor will be more inclined to grant clemency after seeing the client’s application off paper and on screen.”

Soucek’s work behind the camera was in concert with her field of study as an undergraduate at Bard -- film and electronic arts. She grew up in Bar Harbor, Maine, and attended Mount Desert Island High School.

“It’s really rural,” she said. “I literally grew up on an island.”

Soucek has been teaching high school since graduating from college in 2022, first in California and then a year in London before returning to the West Coast.

She hopes to earn a master’s of fine arts with Duke’s experimental and documentary arts program, and a certificate in teaching.

“I’m really excited to be back in an academic community and learn from my peers,” she said. “I want to learn about film documentary theory and history. I’m also excited to learn from other people who are there for the same reason I am – this deep passion for filmmaking.”

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