The Cruel Prison of Poverty Drawn by the values and example of Francis of Assisi, filmmaker and author Gerard Straub spent months living among the poor of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, Toronto, Rome, Nairobi, Brazil, India, the Philippines, and Jamaica. “Armed only with a pen and a 35-mm camera,” he listened to their stories, photographing the men, women and children who live desperate lives of poverty and hunger.