Former Ill. Governor George Ryan was at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah this weekend to promote the film Deadline, directed by Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson, a chronicle of the demise of the capital punishment system in Illinois.

"Deadline," directed by Katy Chevigny and Kirsten Johnson, follows the turbulent debate that erupted when Northwestern University journalism students showed that innocent men had been condemned to death row. Thirteen men were eventually found to have been wrongly convicted and Ryan, a Republican and supporter of the death penalty, declared a moratorium on capital punishment in the state.

Ryan, his wife and three former death row inmates were expected to attend a launch party Sunday night for the film, a contender in the Park City festival's documentary competition. The film mixes interviews with Ryan and other figures in the legal debate with archival footage.

Death row inmates interviewed in the documentary include Gabriel Solache, a Mexican national who speaks no English, yet was convicted of murder and kidnapping based on an alleged English-language confession; Robbie Jones, who was the youngest man on death row at 19; and Grayland Johnson, who claimed to have been tortured into a false confession. Ryan commuted the sentences of all three to life in prison without parole.