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North American premiere of new director’s cut
Each year, 650,000 people are released from prison in the United States, only to face an obstacle course of stigma, surveillance and systemic exclusion. Led by former drug dealer turned fitness entrepreneur Coss Marte, Conbody vs Everybody follows Marte and a tight-knit group of formerly incarcerated New Yorkers forging a pact for mutual survival as they reenter a society that claims to offer second chances but rarely does. In a span of eight years (2014–2021), director Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) and editor Victoria “Tory” Stewart chronicle Marte’s journey as he builds CONBODY, a Lower East Side gym that hires and empowers returned citizens.
Set against a gentrifying city and, as the series progresses, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Conbody vs Everybody captures the humor, grit and moral clarity of working-class New Yorkers fighting for dignity within a system stacked against them. Both a classic American underdog story and a searing critique of the prison industrial complex, this five-part docuseries poses one of the most urgent moral questions of our time: after someone serves their prison sentence, why do we keep them imprisoned?
Earlier versions of the first two episodes premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival; this presentation marks the first North American screening of Granik’s new director’s cut of all five episodes.
Series programmed and notes written by Public Programmer Beandrea July.
