We embark on this mission with the creative intent to give a human face to those impacted by incarceration, the death penalty, and institutionalization, as Draya has been. To reflect the truth of these times, it is evident that when systemic oppressions bear their weight, they do so not on statistics but on human beings. On our brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers. Draya and Duster’s story is the story of Black youth in America, their dreams, their innocence, and their persecution. Their journey through racial terror, family loss, and survival is the story of America itself. A Draya Grey exists in each of us. I know this, having grown up in Chicago, coming from a broken home like Draya's, which has made me struggle to rekindle the village of family life within me. Family is everything for the marginalized. But what happens when there’s no family, no shelter, no home?

The mission of Duster Grey’s Come and Gone and the team behind it is to shift the cultural focal point on incarcerated people, as well as the families they leave and the communities that are severed from them. The narrative of the picture is designed and structured to point the public eye to the plight of not only the institutionalized, but also the lives of those connected to them; specifically, the children who are forced into adulthood, and the loss of childish innocence that ensues.  Our goal is to reframe the cultural point of view of the incarcerated and the death penalty; only through this reframing can real change and policy shifts be made.

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The picture is a reclaiming of that childhood and that humanity for the people who have been systemically stripped of it, across generations, presidential regimes, and continents. From America to South Africa, the threat that Incarceration poses to humanity is urgent and as pressing as it has ever been. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.  Duster Grey’s Come and Gone is a call to imagine a world where children are not collateral damage. It is a cinematic attempt to restore humanity where the system has stolen it.