God Save Texas - Season 1 - Episode 1

Huntsville is the capital of the Texas prison colossus, with seven prisons in the area and one quarter of the town's adult population incarcerated. In his second documentary, five-time Oscar nominated filmmaker Richard Linklater, whose Huntsville background has informed several of his feature films, takes on the divisive and heated issues of the penal system in his home state which upholds the death penalty despite waning popularity and where nearly 1,000 people in Huntsville alone have been legally put to death. For many Huntsville locals, the prisons occupy another universe distinct from their own. For others, they provide much needed employment. In GOD SAVE TEXAS: HOMETOWN PRISON, Linklater chronicles the lives of everyday men and women whose lives are affected by the business of incarceration and death that looms over their town. In conversation with old friends and classmates, correctional officers and lawyers, death penalty advocates and protestors, Linklater lays bare a thorny, symbiotic existence of the town with its incarcerated, painting a multi-faceted picture of the criminal justice system in Texas.Show more