Crowded (1978)

When the inmates of the grotesquely overcrowded Baltimore City Jail sued the city and state, African-American director Alonzo Crawford, on a budget of $400, documented conditions inside - and on the strength of that unyieldingly attentive visual evidence, the prisoners won. Based in Baltimore, Alonzo Crawford, an avid proponent of the short documentary, co-founded and designed the graduate film program at Howard University. His other films include Gila Monster(2007), Sleep to Dream (2014), and The Making of Outrage (2016). The latter explores the tumultuous impact within the black community in Baltimore of the April 2015 death of young Freddie Gray while being transported in a police van.