Synopsis

MET WHILE INCARCERATED is the provocative and touching love story of 3 successful, strong, intelligent women who've shocked themselves and their loved ones by falling for a man who is in prison for a violent crime.

 

MWI challenges the stereotypes -- both around society's monsters and the imagined divide between "us" and "them" when it comes to crime and punishment, good and evil, forgiveness and redemption.

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She's not who you'd expect; a teacher, a military vet, and a hospital worker, all accomplished women who've fallen for a man in prison who has committed a violent crime. They put status, social acceptability, friendships and even family on the line to love a man we fear. Having committed no crime, these women face incredible stigma to fight for his second chance. The prison wives believe their partner has changed; you could say they're betting their lives on it.

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Journey is a suburban soccer mom, Christian and military veteran living the American dream in Georgia, who fell in love with Ben, a man in prison on Attempted Murder charges for trying to kill the last woman he loved. We follow her ambitious path from their prison wedding in Oregon to one year later, trying to win her conservative world over -- including her evangelical Christian family.

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“I’m not perfect and neither is he but we’re perfect for each other.”

Angela watches a New Orleans wedding go by in the French Quarter and says a little prayer that might be her and Michael one day, if he can get off death row before Louisiana starts executing people again. She's a middle school teacher, a good Catholic beauty with a lust for life, from a well-off family in New Orleans. She was married to her high school sweetheart when movies and documentaries inspired her to write to a death row inmate. He's Michael Taylor, a poor boy from rural Louisiana, a painter and a convicted murderer who has been in America's largest prison -- Angola -- for 19 years of near solitary confinement. As Angela's marriage dissolved their pen-pal friendship unexpectedly turned to love. Now she’s keeping this secret from her closest friends and the eye-for-an-eye state that signs her paycheque. This couple is praying for a miracle in the place justice left behind, Louisiana.

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“He taught me how to love again and I taught him how to live again.”

Brenda looks out on her future with her husband a day after he's been released from prison having served 31 years for a violent crime. “What are you thinking?” she asks him. “I'm scared,” he answers. Brenda has fought for everything she has in her life. She's known Sonny since they were kids straight off the Native reservation. Amidst dysfunctional childhoods young love blossomed, but they parted ways; she went onto college, career, marriage and kids while he went to prison. Twenty-five years later and divorced, Brenda found Sonny serving an indeterminate sentence in Portland, Oregon. After 6 years of marriage and fighting for his parole, we meet them preparing for homecoming and the chance at life they've always hoped for and never imagined. But can Sonny put the violence that got him in there, and kept him alive inside, behind him?

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“Look at what I get at the end of all this. I have my husband that I’ve wanted all my life.”

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