Jail Time Records | Official Clip | Tribeca Festival 2026 World Premiere

Why It Matters

A Tribeca premiere gives the project high-profile exposure and could broaden conversations about incarceration, migration and experimental performance, potentially boosting the artists’ visibility and marketability. The clip’s festival positioning signals appetite among curators and audiences for boundary-pushing, politically inflected art.

Summary

The official clip for Jail Time Records, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival 2026, offers a surreal, performative glimpse into life inside Newbelt Central Prison. The short mixes chant-like refrains and fragmented dialogue with staged scenes, introducing artists such as Larra, Big Stone, Transporters and Pen. The piece frames the prison as a site of paradox—“where the mouse eats the cat”—and gestures to themes of displacement and return for those “from the East.” Overall, it reads as a hybrid music-and-theater work positioned for festival audiences rather than a conventional documentary.

Original Description

Get tickets to the world premiere at Tribeca Festival: https://tribecafilm.com/films/jail-time-records-2026

Inside the Central Prison of Douala, Cameroon, a group of incarcerated artists are making something extraordinary. Documenting the first recording studio built in a prison, Jail Time Records follows these artists as they transform their circumstances through music. In the middle of conflict and difficulty, music emerges as the film's invisible protagonist: the driving force that unites extremely different characters, transcends their suffering, and offers the possibility for change and redemption.

Directed by Dione Roach & Steve Happi

Executive Produced by Taika Waititi, Rita Ora, Garrett Basch, Caitlin Alba-Rothstein, and Gillian Brown

Produced by Dione Roach, Steve Happi, Giacomo Stucchi-Prinetti, and Tabs Breese

Edited by Jocelyne Chaput, Marie Helene Dozo, and Dione Roach

🎶 Showtimes 🎶

June 6 - 5:30PM - AMC 19th St.

June 7 - 2:45PM - AMC 19th St.

June 11 - 6:15PM - AMC 19th St.