The opening moments of the Critics’ Choice-nominated documentary “Exodus” follow Trinity Copeland as she unpacks and settles into a new apartment — the first she has lived in on her own. “I’m not sure how life should look for somebody who’s formerly incarcerated,” she says early in the film. “People would hope that they get out, do better with their life, get a job, move on — but it’s just not that simple.”
Both Copeland and the film’s other protagonist, Assia Serrano, were released early under New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, a 2019 law that allows people to seek resentencing if domestic violence significantly contributed to their crime. But freedom does not look the same for both women. Copeland, who served 11 years of a 25-year sentence, enrolls in school and considers therapy. Serrano, who served 17 years of an 18-years-to-life sentence, is quickly deported to Panama, a country she left as a teenager. “I served my sentence,” she says in the film, which was shot over two years entirely in black and white. “I felt like this is the beginning of my other sentence, because I have to be here without my children.” Serrano’s pardon application remains pending with the New York governor’s office.
In this edited and condensed Q&A, “Exodus” director Nimco Sheikhaden explains why she focused on life after release, how her own proximity to incarceration shaped the film, and what it means to “witness responsibly.”
What made you want to focus on reentry rather than incarceration itself?
We often hear stories about incarceration that end at the moment of release. It’s sort of framed as if freedom is the resolution. But I was really, really curious about what actually comes after that, because freedom isn’t a single moment. It’s an ongoing process. It’s relearning how to live on the outside, how to trust, how to rebuild. And for a lot of people, reentry becomes an extension of the punishment itself; the same forces that confine you continue to shape your life long after you come home.
Also, the story is deeply personal: My fiancé has been incarcerated for a few years. And over the last two years, I’ve been navigating a lot of the same questions that the women were asking themselves. Like: What does rebuilding look like? What does it look like to live under these conditions and then have to shift post-release? I think that proximity really shaped everything else. Ultimately, it was really helpful to understand the emotional texture of navigating systems that kind of chip away at your sense of control and agency.
A lot of documentaries about prison lean on crisis or punishment. Yours lingers on ordinary moments — cooking, waiting, reconnecting. What drew you to that kind of storytelling, and how did you think about pacing?
The pacing choice was a political choice, as much as an artistic one. When we approached funders, one of the first questions that they always asked was, Where does the story end? Or, How do you know when you're going to stop filming? But I’ve always had a hard time with that type of framing because it's an impossible question. Our real lives [don’t conform] to any sort of narrative arc.
We wanted to let [the two women] occupy a space fully without rushing, because things are slow. There are setbacks and moments where almost nothing is happening, and then other moments where everything was happening all at once.
Tell me about your decision to film entirely in black and white.
Visually, I chose black and white because I wanted to strip everything down to its essence, because black and white can collapse time. You're not thinking about past and present. Also, even though Trinity and Assia knew each other, it was a helpful bridge. It was a helpful way to kind of marry their stories. Transitions felt pretty seamless.
When you’re filming people who are actively trying to rebuild their lives, there’s always the question of balancing honesty with sensitivity. How did you think about that while making “Exodus”?
We thought a lot about, How do you witness responsibly? And what does it mean to film with people who have experienced a lot of trauma, a lot of harm — physically, emotionally. Honestly, it was through spending months beforehand, having conversations, making explicitly clear what our intentions were, and trying to build a process that’s rooted in trust.
I wanted Trinity and Assia to feel empowered as collaborators. I [hadn’t] experienced what they have, so they told me. Through that empowerment, it became a film that told the story that contributed to their journey of healing.
The film avoids a traditional “redemption” narrative but still wrestles with the idea of justice, especially through the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. How did you want viewers to see that tension play out?
The two women in the film benefited from what was essentially a shift in public consciousness around domestic violence. But I think for us it was important to not claim that law as a perfect win, because it wasn’t. Because even with that progress, the system still found another way to punish [Assia.]
This legal shift that led to her release also essentially accelerated her deportation and turned what should have been a moment of justice into another form of exile. That’s the contradiction that was at the heart of “Exodus,” because it showed how easily reforms can become tools and ways to weaponize their experiences and create exclusion. It [also] shows how compassion can then turn very conditional, because they’re always going to be searching for that “perfect victim” that doesn’t exist. Within the film, we’re trying to ask these questions: Who do we deem worthy of freedom and why? Who gets to be seen as a victim or as a survivor?
The film ends with Trinity taking steps to rebuild — going back to school, maybe starting therapy. Assia is reunited with her children but still waiting for her pardon. What does that open ending reveal about the reality of reentry?
I think, one, it was important to know that life doesn’t stop when we wrap up the film. They continue onwards. There’s going to be happy moments and sad moments, complicated moments, but at the end of the day, their life presses forward.
One of things we talked about with Trinity was how she had taken her father’s life, and that visiting his gravesite was important to her. We talked about filming it as a possible ending because it felt like a step toward healing. Ultimately, she wasn't ready.
We [also] knew we were making a short film. We knew we didn’t have an infinite amount of time, so it was important to put guardrails around the film. There were things I predicted the story could be about — like how the system continues to confine you. But it also became about the personal aspects, the relationships. I think when we were willing to let go [of] whatever conceptions we had about what the story could be, [then the film] actually became what it was supposed to be.
What does it mean to release “Exodus” in this moment?
We're seeing, especially right now, this administration leaning into more punitive policies. ICE continues to be emboldened. Families are currently being separated, and so one of the things that I was thinking a lot about is the stories that we tell about this [moment in] time.
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And having the film out now feels significant because we are in a moment where true crime has become entertainment. It almost feels like it's a thirst that can never be quenched or satiated. People just cannot get enough of it. And I think it's important to ask why. [We] blame the networks, the streamers, the places where these films exist. But at the end of the day, they're only responding to what people are consuming.
[With “Exodus”], we're trying to refuse a spectacle. It’s not about the punishment. It's about the people in it who are attempting to survive it. And what does repair look like in a society that only knows how to punish?
What do you hope audiences take away, especially those who think they already understand what “coming home” means?
I hope people don’t view the story as [being only about] Trinity and Assia. Like somebody is being released from prison today. There’s someone who is taking the train for the first time, and they might be sitting next to you. I hope people can pull out a little bit and see them as representations of that experience, that there’s so many other people who are as deserving of our support and community. I hope that they represent something much bigger than their individual experiences. That feels like a hopeful takeaway for me.