Photo Credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/Rex

Last week, Len Amato, president of HBO Films, announced that HBO has acquired the narrative feature O.G. .The Drama Stars, Emmy winner of HBO’s Angels In America, Jeffrey Wright, Theothus Carter, and William Fichtner.

Filmed entirely on location at Indiana’s maximum-security Pendleton Correctional Facility, the project is directed by Madeleine Sackler, executive produced by Kareem “Biggs” Burke, and written by Stephen Belber.

The film premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, where Jefferey Wright won the award for Best Actor in a U.S. Narrative Feature Film.

“We are proud to bring filmmaker Madeleine Sackler’s film to HBO audiences,” said Len Amato. “Groundbreaking in being filmed at an actual prison, with many of the men incarcerated there cast in acting roles, O.G. takes an intimate and unflinching look at the journey of one man – masterfully portrayed by Jeffrey Wright – at the precipice of freedom.”

HBO has also acquired the documentary It’s A Hard Truth Ain’t It, which was shot at Pendleton during the same production period as O.G. The documentary is co-directed by Madeleine Sackler and 13 men incarcerated at Pendleton, who study filmmaking as a vehicle to tell their own stories. Several of these men were also cast as first-time actors in the O.G. documentary, they explore their memories and how they ended up with decades-long sentences, with animated sequences by Yoni Goodman (“Waltz with Bashir”) bringing their stories to life.