[Pursuit of Happiness: Molly Rush]

Raw footage of an interview with activist Molly Rush for the video Pursuit of Happiness, produced and directed by Julie Gustafson and John Reilly. 

00:15Copy video clip URL Activist Molly Rush, curly haired with large glasses, rides through a snow-covered city in the backseat of a car. Camera operator Julie Gustafson sits in the front passenger seat while shooting Molly, who is giving directions to the driver and making small talk. 

03:45Copy video clip URL In response to a question from Gustafson, Rush discusses the history of her own imprisonment and that of her fellow Plowshares 8 defendants, including their struggles to post bail and to maintain contact with their lawyers and with each other. She also discusses the feeling that some of the men should remain in jail in solidarity with the countless men and women who have been cruelly incarcerated.

10:35Copy video clip URL Rush discusses how difficult it has been being free while her colleagues remain in prison. She visits them frequently, but because their visits are limited to 5 per month, their friends and family have to schedule their visits with each other. 

12:12Copy video clip URL Gustafson asks Rush to explain their appeals process and the decision for some to remain in prison more succinctly. 

14:35Copy video clip URL Rush talks about the difficult emotions of visiting her friends in prison, and the debilitating effects of being in prison oneself. She cannot see how such a system can do anything other than perpetuate inequality and marginalization.

19:15Copy video clip URL Rush says that the whole criminal justice system is designed to make people feel helpless and frustrated, and to crush the lives of incarcerated people.

20:56Copy video clip URL Gustafson points out that Rush and her colleagues are different from the majority of the prison population because to some degree they chose prison out of a sense of moral obligation, rather than out of desperation. Molly objects somewhat and talks about women she met in prison.