Prison Dance YouTube Hit Made for the Big Screen

By Michaela Cabrera for Reuters

They first gained fame on YouTube, dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.  Now, the orange-uniformed men at a central Philippine jail make their big screen debut in a movie about prison reforms.

The 98-minute movie, “Dance of the Steel Bars”, was shot at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, with 750 prisoners forming the backdrop to a story about an American wrongly accused of murder and the bond he forms with a fellow inmate with a talent for dance.

The plot revolves around the real-life reforms carried out in the Cebu jail, where a security adviser introduced daily dance routines in 2007 to instill discipline and camaraderie.

The film was screened inside the Cebu jail on June 7.

The producers are betting on the inmates’ Internet fame for the project’s commercial success. The prisoners’ dance on YouTube has been viewed by more than 40 million people, said Stu Higton, executive producer of Dubai-based Portfolio Films International.

“Dance of the Steel Bars” opened in the Philippines on Wednesday and will be distributed in Asia, the Middle East and the United States.

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