The bulk of the film, Judas and the Black Messiah, was made in Cleveland and filmed a few days in November 2019 at the Mansfield prison that was the backdrop for the hit movie The Shawshank Redemption.
The motion picture, directed by Shaka King, is based on real events in Chicago surrounding the 1969 murder/assassination of Illinois Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and the story behind FBI informant William O Neill, who infiltrated the party on behalf of the federal law enforcement agency.
Ohio State Reformatory represents Illinois prison in movie
The historic Mansfield reformatory was used to represent the Illinois state prison in which Hampton spent time for allegedly assaulting and robbing an ice cream salesman.