Beyond Walls is an organizing initiative featuring documentary films that define and amplify what prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition means, while inspiring people to imagine and take action toward a world without policing. Beyond a goal of simply changing hearts and minds, these five short films, this website, and screening events offer concrete tools and actions that can be taken to help create a world without police and prisons. Beyond Walls was curated by the Center for Political Education, Critical Resistance, MPD150, and Survived + Punished in partnership with Working Films.
The legacy of prisons and policing is built atop a long history of reinforcing oppressive social and economic practices levied by police officers, guards, ICE officers, and others enforcing state violence. Beyond Walls sheds light on the human spirit that cannot be contained by the carceral system. These films lift up stories of resistance through organizing, maintaining relationships with loved ones, and storytelling that help us demonstrate an abolitionist imagination.
Working Films believes that power emanates from the ground up, and that grassroots leaders and directly impacted people should hold the power to determine what stories are told and what films are funded to serve their movements. Beyond Walls was curated by Center for Political Education, Critical Resistance, MPD150, and Survived + Punished.