“Long Distance Revolutionary” focuses on Mumia AbuPJamal’s career as a prolific writer and journalist from the depths of prison. The film chronicles his life and work as a journalist, writer, and philosopher – a public intellectual who has spent thirty years in a Pennsylvania prison, twenty nine of them in solitary confinement on death row.
The film tracks Mumia’s early work in journalism as a writer for the Black Panther newspaper (at age 15) through his promising and emerging career as a reporter for National Public Radio. After Mumia is convicted for the murder of Philadelphia patrolman Daniel Faulkner, the story then exposes Mumia’s battles with the American judicial system (prisons & courts) to continue his journalism and radio broadcasts from behind bars – a battle he continues to wage to this very day.
The film evolves into an exploration of his impact on social and political discourse both in the United States and around the world.
The film features exclusive and rare prison interviews with Mumia as well insights from Cornel West, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Ruby Dee, Rubin Hurricane Carter, Amy Goodman, Dick Gregory, Peter Coyote, Giancarlo Esposito, Tariq Ali, Michael Parenti, Ramsey Clark, MP1 (Dead Prez), Dave Zirin, Aya de Leon, Frances Goldin, Ramona Africa, as well as many others. Ultimately, the film ushers the audience behind prison walls and exposes the horrors of the American gulag.
The audience experiences this journey with Mumia… a journey that defines the triumph of hope, courage, and love.
- KBOO