9th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival

Guards with semi-automatic assault rifles pace before the razor wire.Their eyes are trained on the men below: gang bangers, thieves, and murderers who converge on a dusty diamond inside the yard. Behind the backstop, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia and the Crips and Bloods look on. This is San Quentin baseball. Every spring, 24 convicts taste the cool, crisp air of freedom. Not by stepping outside the prison walls, but by putting on a pair of spikes and picking up a glove.And for four months, they’re not just inmates they’re… ballplayers.The film follows the charismatic coach of the San Quentin Giants through his final season with the prison baseball program, as he tries to change the lives of the men on his team. By peeling back the layers of their dark personal histories, he reveals their inner core as human beings.