Festival Debut for MFA Thesis Film Andrew after Angola

Congratulations to Will LaCalle (MFA ’21) on the festival launch of his thesis film, Andrew After Angola! The film premieres this week at Cinema on The Bayou Film Festival in Lafayette, Louisiana. Next stop is the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in February. Big Sky is an Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences qualifying event for short-form documentaries and the premier venue for non-fiction film in the American West. 

Andrew After Angola follows a reentry program created to help former prisoners rebuild their lives in Louisiana and explores the complex background of the program’s founder, Andrew Hundley. Andrew is in a unique position to speak to this experience, having spent years in Louisiana’s largest prison, known as Angola, for second-degree murder, a crime he committed at age 15. The film is told through the perspective of those who have served decades behind bars and asks the audience to consider the tough questions it raises, namely, whether Andrew and the people he works with deserve a second chance.