The film “Hey Hugo” was created in collaboration with students in Brent Huffman’s Documenting Carceral Injustice short documentary class. Huffman is a Medill professor and Medill's director of documentary filmmaking. It was one of four films telling the story of an incarcerated man and was highlighted at a McCormick Foundation Center forum screening and question-and-answer panel earlier this year.

In  the course, a small cohort of ten students spend three hours a week at Sheridan Correctional Center, where they are put into groups with incarcerated students, like Hugo, in the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP). NPEP is one of the few programs in the country that creates opportunities for individuals to receive a bachelor's degree while incarcerated.

Students develop the films over the course of the 10-week quarter, with NPEP students deciding on the topics and story focus.

Class of 2025 Student Ysa Quiballo, who worked on “Hey Hugo,” described the process: “Originally, Hugo wasn't in my group at all … it was a few other students and all of them were like, 'I have a story, but someone else might have something better.' The Sheridan students provided so much more insight about what they believed needed to be uplifted.”

Quiballo stressed the importance of this dynamic in creating films like “Hey Hugo,” reiterating the importance of NPEP students steering the topical direction of the Medill students’ films.

These stories highlight numerous prisoners' lives that have been taken by the judicial system — their lives, families, and experiences reduced to case files and court transcripts. Joining the MFC panel by phone, Keith Lamar (who is incarcerated on murder charges, claims innocence, but is set for death row in 2027) put it succinctly, “[Prison] takes your humanity from you … we get through it by having a community.”

These short films emphasize the importance of community in prison, and creating a place for the incarcerated man's life as it relates to those around him and his family, rather than his case alone.

Despite the circumstances of incarceration, many family members who attended the screening were able to crack jokes, reminisce and laugh about their memories with their incarcerated brothers, cousins and fathers, despite the fact that their loved one remained behind bars. Even after years of watching their family member remain trapped, the families’ hope was palpable.

Quiballo spoke about the importance of people being able to connect with the family and share their own experiences in the process of screening, “Having Hugo incarcerated is a really isolating experience, and to be able to break into that isolation a little bit more by helping them share their story is definitely the best part of the process.”

Huffman echoed this sentiment: “The films try to show that this is a person just like you, and this is a situation that could have happened to you, and even though you may not feel it, you know going in … after you watch the film, you feel empathy for the person, and in some ways, you see yourself, or you see a family member in that person, and you care about them.” The films inspire broader public knowledge and action towards change.

There have been over 50 screenings and events surrounding these films, with “Hey Hugo” winning best documentary at the 2025 CineYouth film festival and being played at both the 2025 Chicago International Festival and American Documentary Film Festival. Quiballo talks about the impact of this publicity: “I think that's what makes documentary filmmaking a really unique area of journalism [is that] it draws an audience, and a certain attention and visibility that often other forms of journalism can't.”

These documentaries have had impact beyond their important role in humanizing incarcerated people, with students in the courses pursuing change on an actionable level: One Medill student decided to pursue carceral law after working on another one of the short films presented.

Quiballo, now graduated, works full-time in film production in Chicago. She discusses how making “Hey Hugo” is part of that journey, stating, “when I look back at that film, I had zero experience … that was the first documentary film I ever made, and it still is really valuable work.”

For the subjects of the films, their impact has been more than just encouraging empathy: Huffman stated that the four films from the MFC event have led to new lawyers and renewed representation for the men whose stories they tell.

Perhaps the only downside of these Medill students’ short films is that there are only a handful of them, and that there aren't two million cameras across the country helping to tell the story of every incarcerated individual. Imagine the impact telling more stories like this could create.

Learn more about “Hey Hugo.”
Read about Medill and NPEP students creating radio segments for WBEZ Chicago.

Jon Myers (McCormick26) is a senior studying civil engineering and art history and will attend The George Washington University Law School this fall with a focus on public interest law.