ShangLuda Admirable film.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

waynezorro One of the most impressive aspects of this beautifully photographed, riveting documentary is the way the filmmakers catch the generosity of the prisoners who give their all to help the non prisoners and fellow inmates. The organizers of The Work and the participants deserve a lot of credit. I don't know of a single man, including my male patients who couldn't benefit from this four day event. Hopefully, women who watch this will understand some of the internal pain that most men carry.

waynepetrin 'The Work' was an extraordinary experience exploring individual personal extremes of violent feelings towards others and oneself. The group therapy sessions with three facilitators and about 10 violent prison inmates resonated excruciating memories, with individual outbursts requiring intense therapeutic physical restraint by many peers. Each prisoner's soul searching self disclosures clearly presented to all viewers the fact that violent hatred of others has its source in one's self-hatred. I have experienced these revelations working in therapeutic holds with violent hateful severely disturbed adolescents at Tri-County Youth in Northampton, MA. The notion that hatreds of others are acquired but unrecognized self-hatreds has ramifications beyond group therapy to the world at large. Racism, genocide, wars, colonialism, slavery and much beyond are at their source unrecognized self-hatreds. Christ's forgotten admonitions, 'Don't judge!' and 'Have empathy for your enemies' ring true worldwide as our forthcoming non-violent future. Violence was virtually reduced by half in the 20th century. We're but a few centuries away from our thousands of years of peace.

Minter Dial The Work is a masterful film. It shows raw and powerful emotions, in a context that is entirely surprising. This film moves because it illustrates that, fundamentally, men inside and outside prison actually have the same types of issues. By so doing, you realise how we on the "outside" share similar baggage with those in prison, even the most hardened criminals. It's a film that cannot leave your neutral.

JustCuriosity The Work was extremely well-received during its world premiere at Austin SXSW Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize in Documentary Feature Competition. This is one of the most intense films that you will ever see and it literally takes your breath away. It is follows several prisoners – many serving long sentences for violent, often gang-related, crimes - in a group therapy program at Folsom Prison over a four-day period in which they push each other to confront their demons. They discuss their betrayals which often involve deep-seated and painful issues in their family lives. They confront each physically and emotionally. They open up the darkest corners of their lives so that outside observers can understand that much of the anger that made them criminals comes from deep well-springs of personal suffering and often abuse. Indirectly, this film asks a very deep question about our criminal justice system: Is it supposed to warehouse and punish offenders or is it supposed to rehabilitate them to return to society? If it is the former it is doing so at a very great cost. If it is the latter than we need to invest in programs like this so that we can return these men to as productive members of society. This film shows us what rehabilitation looks like and subtly makes that argument. We need a national conversation about how the criminal justice system is failing and about how we can begin to repair it. We have begun discussing some aspects of this complex problem including reconsidering the "War on Drugs," but we also need to be discussing how to rehabilitate those currently imprisoned as well. I hope that it gains distribution so that a wider audience can see this powerful and compelling film and begin this conversation about the criminal justice system.