The Prisoner's Cinema

2008 • Directed by

Melvin Moti

The Prisoner’s Cinema is a phenomenon which is described in neuro and optical science as visual hallucinations as a result of prolonged visual deprivation. Prisoners confined in a dark cell have repeatedly reported this phenomenon, hence the name. Whenever a person is completely cut off from visual information, as a result of looking at a ‘blank screen’, visual hallucinations will appear. They take the form of geometric light shapes which are seemingly ‘projected’ about a hand stretch away from the subject.