"Bar None: Cannabis Redemption" at the Stissing Center

A solo-made documentary follows 13 people rebuilding their lives in the legal cannabis industry after incarceration for marijuana — followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker

Saturday, June 27, 7:30–9:30pm | Pine Plains, NY | $15

The Stissing Center screens "Bar None: Cannabis Redemption" in Banning Hall on June 27, with a Q&A to follow led by director Howard Ellis. The film examines what happens when legalization outpaces justice — despite cannabis being legal or semi-legal in 38 states, roughly 40,000 people remain imprisoned for cannabis-related offenses, with many more facing ongoing consequences from old convictions. The biggest culprit, according to Ellis, is that cannabis remains classified as a Schedule 1 drug, grouped with substances like heroin and LSD even as dispensaries operate openly across most of the country.

Ellis is a Maplewood, New Jersey resident with more than 25 years in television as a senior editor and producer for USA Network, SyFy Channel, Animal Planet, and Universal Kids, who made this film entirely on his own. "I decided to one-man band it," he's says. "The crew is me... If I make mistakes, they're my mistakes. It's a labor of love."

Ellis originally set out to make a documentary about people's passions, built around a convention-center framing device—before the cannabis story found him and pulled him into territory he describes as completely unfamiliar. In addition to the 13 formerly incarcerated subjects who now work as advocates, business owners, and community leaders, he also interviewed cannabis lawyers, medical professionals, and scientists studying the drug.

The film won Best Director/Feature Film and was nominated for Best Documentary/North America at the AltFF Alternative Film Festival in Toronto, and won the Award of Excellence in the Documentary Feature category at the Impact DOCS Awards in La Jolla. Screenings include a live panel discussion with participants from the film and the director, and these conversations tend to extend well past cannabis policy into broader questions of redemption, equity, and what reform actually requires.

The Stissing Center, 2950 Church St., Pine Plains, NY. Tickets at thestissingcenter.org.