Sickness in the System

Friday, September 30 - Thursday, October 6, 2022

Through May 2020, none of the 3,500 people incarcerated in San Quentin State Prison had tested positive for COVID-19. Six weeks later, 40 percent of the population was infected, making it the worst COVID hotspot in the country. Sickness in the System shows the San Quentin outbreak from the inside by combining phone interviews with incarcerated people with performances by actors and hand-drawn illustrations. Through two men’s stories, we see how the virus came to San Quentin from a botched prisoner transfer and quickly spread through open-air cells, packed showers and poor management. As the pandemic rages, both men fear for their lives, but they meet very different fates when the California Department of Corrections begins releasing inmates to combat the crisis.

• Running Time 26 minutes
• Distributor Field of Vision
• Director Bryan Gibel
• Accessibility T-Coil, Assistive Listening, Closed Captioning

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.