A native of Houston, Texas, Monroe had a happy childhood with his mother, stepfather, and close-knit extended family. However, as he grew older and saw his parents struggling to make ends meet, Monroe’s vision of the world changed: “I went from being a carefree and joyous child to becoming acutely aware of the fact that the world was not as I saw it. And the burden that my parents had was slowly trickling down to me.” Placing his own culpability at the heart of the story, Monroe pulls no punches, using dramatized scenes of the bank robbery to capture the tragically bad decisions he and his friends made, and to bring home the terror of those they held at gunpoint. More than just a tale of a good kid gone wrong, Evolution of a Criminal is filled with compassion for human frailty and the knowledge that a person is not forever defined by their mistakes.

The screening will be followed by Q&A with filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe (via Skype), Charles Thornton, Director, Office of Returning Citizen Affairs (ORCA), Lashonia Etheridge-Bey, Community Service Program Specialist, ORCA, and Stuart Anderson, Founder and Director of Family & Friends of Incarcerated People (FFOIP).

Sponsors: Institute for Policy Studies, Community Cinema [DC], ITVS, WHUT, Busboys and Poets, Center for Media & Social Impact, and Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital.

Making reservations is recommended.

Community Cinema is a free monthly screening series, featuring sneak peeks of films from the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Independent Lens. In over 65 cities nationwide, screenings are followed by lively panel discussions that bring together citizens, organizations and public television stations to encourage dialogue and action around important and timely social issues.