Island of Lost Children (Film Review)

Note: This is a documentary film, not a major motion picture.

The Island of Lost Children (La isla de los ninos perdidos, La) ; c2001 ; Spanish, with English subtitles ; 82 minutes ; directed by Florence Jaugey. A prison-based educational venture turned self-reflection, as inmates in a Nicaraguan prison make a documentary of their lives on the inside.

This film is the result of a vocational project. In early 2001, two video professionals from Managua arranged for access to the infamous Tipitapa prison in Nicaragua. Their goal was to teach inmates (a random collection of young, life-sentence thieves, rapists, and murderers) the basics of camera use, lighting, editing, interviewing, scriptwriting, etc. The end-product was to be a film, written and directed and edited, by the inmates. The inmates ended up making a documentary about life in Tipitapa (granted, their options were rather limited).

The film covers all aspects of life in the prison, and in particular how remarkably difficult it is –even with the drugs and the various religious conversions- to try to maintain any sense of hope, in such a setting, when they are daily faced with the nearly constant possibility of deadly violence. Everything is further complicated by the gang mentality, and the bounds of machismo. The video does not shy away from any relationship (prison guards, prisoners with each other, gang life, their families on the outside and what visitor day means to them, etc.). Though inmates try to maintain some semblance of friendship and humor, what is seen is often a haphazard collection of lives lost, with many young men operating on the fringes of sanity.

This is an award-winning film, receiving the “Special Jury Prize” in 2002, from the New York Museum of Modern Art, among other places. There is good reason why the film is award-winning; it is an excellent documentary.