Director’s Statement

I first learned about the Holmesburg Prison Experiments from my sister. A student at the University of Pennsylvania, she passed the abandoned Holmesburg Prison during her daily commute, looked up its history, and was surprised to learn that there was a fellowship and lecture series at her school named after the same man who conducted unethical experiments on inmates, made one of the most profitable skincare products of all time, and was never held accountable for any of the harm he had caused.

At their worst, the experiments conducted in Holmesburg were on par with the medical experiments Nazis conducted on Jewish people during the Holocaust, and they happened in Philadelphia and some of victims are still alive. My reaction could be summed up in one question – why don’t more people know about this?

Initially, it was not my intention to direct this documentary. When I came across this story in 2023, I was working for a television production company in Los Angeles that developed and produced unscripted TV shows. After learning about what happened, I developed a limited series documentary about the Holmesburg Prison Experiments, with the goal of the company pitching and selling it to a linear TV network or streaming service, then attaching a veteran documentary filmmaker or showrunner to make this for a wide audience.

Unfortunately, every major network that makes documentaries passed on this project after hearing our pitch. In 2025, the production company I had created this series for went out of business. At that point, there was no clear path forward for this documentary and the years of relationships and materials we’ve developed along the way were in jeopardy of being forgotten.

This project had become too important to me, so I made the decision to produce it independently and self-fund a week of shooting in August 2025 so we could record the stories of the experiment’s survivors. It is important to me that this documentary be made ethically and equitably, which is why I've brought on The Jones Foundation for Returning Citizens as producing partners — sharing a significant amount of equity in this project with the survivors and their families.

Thanks for reading, and join us as we get this documentary made!

Ryan Doody