Prison Radio Association’s emotional transmission

For most people, the radio is just background noise in everyday life, but this touching spot from the Prison Radio Association depicts how for inmates and their loved ones, it’s a much-needed lifeline.  

Directed by Craig Bingham through Brother Film in association with Media Trust and the Foundation Santander, the film, titled Connection, is set between two worlds; one a bleak prison cell where a woman serves her sentence, the other a bright, sunny garden belonging to her dad, a pigeon fancier. 

The connection between father and daughter is explained by the voiceover - a radio presenter reads a Happy Birthday message from Dad, tending to his birds on the outside, to his daughter listening from her prison cell. 

Bingham added: “This film captures just one small part of PRA’s work. What struck me most were the call-out sessions - a bridge that lets family and friends connect across those walls. The story I tell here is fictional, about a father and daughter bound together by their love of pigeon racing. For me, the birds symbolise freedom, resilience and the hope of their future. Like all my work, I aim to draw out emotion from life’s raw edges, finding that delicate line where reality and storytelling meet.”