Double-exposure montage artwork: a man's face merged with a prison wall breaking into birds, his companions beside him, and a glowing doorway standing in a sunlit meadow with a cow at its side.

A Cinematic Experience
Inspired by a True Story

Beyond TheWalls

Name: Beyond The Walls
Director: Shaun Monson
Cast: Tyler Lepley, Keith David, Tabitha Brown, Mariel Hemingway, Luis Moncada

When he lost his freedom, he found his purpose.

Written & Directed by Shaun Monson

Coming 2027

When he lost his freedom, he found his purpose.

Coming 2027

01The Story

Inspired by
a true story

Haunted by the violence of his past and sent to solitary confinement in prison, Dom is forced to confront the demons that have defined his life. With the help of a mysterious cell mate, he finds his inner strength and vows to end violence towards all.

Ethereal and immersive, Beyond The Walls recounts, through its protagonist Dom, that active atonement is a powerful process that effects lasting transformation — ultimately punctuating the notion that changing one thing can change everything.

Coming 2027
USA
Drama

“If it causes harm,
then nah.”
Dom’s vow — written in the hole

02Characters

Within the Walls & Beyond

First-look stills from the film — the remaining portraits follow as scenes are cut.

The Prisoner

Dom Thompson

Tyler Lepley

A young man turned dealer, serving five years for a first offense. Forty days in solitary force him to face the one enemy he can’t outrun, and a vow that changes every life he touches. Inspired by the real Dominick Thompson.
The Guide

Herald

Keith David

A hermit-like cellmate who talks like a therapist and reads Dom like an open book.
The Mother

Maria Thompson

Tabitha Brown

A nurse who raised three children alone on Chicago’s West Side, working three jobs and asking no favors. Her fierce love reaches through the prison walls.
The Lawyer

Ally Fremont

Mariel Hemingway

The defense attorney who won’t take no from a prison. Blunt, tireless and allergic to the word “policy,” she keeps fighting long after the verdict is in.
The Keeper

Minos

Luis Moncada

The SHU’s ranking guard and its self-appointed judge. Every tray, every taunt, every hour of Dom’s isolation passes through his hands.
The Sanctuary Keeper

Sam

Ludi Lin

Owner of the sanctuary where broken animals come to heal. He’s seen what second chances do — and he isn’t afraid to give one to a man with a record.
The Preacher

Pastor

Ray Wise

The pastor Dom meets in the hush of an empty church — a man whose faith is honest enough to carry its own doubt. He offers no easy salvation, only the harder comfort of the questions.
The Friend

Tee

Akeem Mair

Dom’s cellmate in general population — a Detroit dope boy with a quick mouth and a good heart, and the first to notice that the man who came back from the hole isn’t the man who went in.
The Counselor

Ms. Heatherton

Sarah Jeffery

The prison’s counselor — one of the few inside who looks past the case file to the person across the desk.
The Officer

Nemein

Daria Berenato

A corrections officer inside the facility, working the same cell blocks where Dom serves his time.

“Behold, I send you forth
as sheep in the midst of wolves.”
Matthew 10:16 — the film’s epigraph

03Behind the Scenes

A film by

Shaun Monson

“Since Dom’s story is told almost entirely from within, from his own interior, where events are inward turned instead of outward turned, I was strongly inspired to focus visually on the interior experience of the self instead of the traditional focus on outward events, society, and social norms. As such, the film is visually more cerebral, hallucinatory, dreamlike. And since there is no antagonist in the film, Dom is only at war with his inner self. In this sense, the interior world is the only world. His thoughts. His feelings. His experience. And ultimately recognizing his sense of being.”

IMDb nationearth.com

On the dream-forest stage, the director gestures through a moment with the lead actor between takes — Notes between takes on the dream-forest stage

Video village: the director and crew on headsets watching the take on monitors — Video village — watching the take land

—The Real Story

Dominick Thompson

The man whose true story inspired the film

“My hope is that audiences leave this film seeing a little of themselves in my story. Not because they’ve lived my life, but because we’ve all made mistakes, carried regret, searched for purpose, and hoped for another chance. If this story creates more compassion than judgment, then it’s done exactly what I dreamed it would.”
Dominick Thompson

04Technology

How It Was Made

The RED V-RAPTOR XL (X) 8K cinema camera

In Camera

Director of photography David K. Hauver shot the film on RED’s 8K cinema systems — the V-RAPTOR XL (X) leading, its global shutter chosen for clean work against the LED wall — through Cooke Anamorphic/i Full Frame glass, softened with Schneider Radiant Black® diffusion.

“Director Shaun Monson wanted color to play a central role in the storytelling — the RED system was exceptionally well suited to that challenge.”

RED V-RAPTOR XL (X) · 8K
Cooke Anamorphic/i Full Frame
Schneider Radiant Black diffusion

A curved LED volume stage displaying a night prison yard, with crew and a partial cell set in the foreground

The Volume

The visions that visit Dom in the hole live inside a wraparound LED volume — a stage walled with high-resolution panels playing real-time environments, the cell set standing at its centre so the impossible can surround the actors in camera.

“It gave us complete control — we could lock in the quality and direction of light” — down to staging an encounter with wildlife no real forest would ever allow.

Wraparound LED volume
In-camera VFX
Controlled light & haze

“There’s a special kind of excitement in those moments, because you know you’ve photographed something completely genuine.”
David K. Hauver — Director of Photography

Read the full interview

05Cast