As Wisconsin reforms its expungement process, the opportunity for a second chance for the formerly incarcerated hinges on a local activist named Shanyeill McCloud.
Shanyeill McCloud

When Freddie Nole drives to meet a man walking out of prison, he’s not just offering a ride, he’s offering hope, dignity, and a path to permanent freedom. As this vérité road trip unfolds, we come to learn the remarkable story behind Freddie’s mission, a staggering mistake that cost him 50 years of freedom but ultimately brings him right back to the prison door.
2026

Suh, whose favorite Packer will always be Mason Crosby; Omi and Ayaka, whose infant daughter already sports a green and gold onesie, and Ryuta aka “fatdragon08” who briefly lived in Milwaukee in 1990, studying English, where he was teased for wearing a San Fancisco 49ers jacket, and subsequently converted to the Pack Life. Benzine’s film lets us spend quality time with these super fans, and then follows them as they make plans to cross the sea to see their beloved Packers in-person at Lambeau! As director Benzine says, “No Packers, No Life is a story about a sports team and their fans, but more than that it illustrates how people from all over the world can come together and unite over a common passion. Also, the Japanese fans arrive in Green Bay and get to ride the Zippin Pippin and party a lot. It’s a very good time.”
2025

After surviving a violent assault by a serving soldier who was convicted but walked free with a suspended sentence, Natasha O'Brien refused to stay silent.
2025

Out of Office is the story of a scrappy group of office workers in Wisconsin who managed to pull off a major victory for workers’ rights. Upon their contract’s expiration, the workers activated their dormant union and fought back against their employer - a massive financial services provider making record profits. Their fight dragged out for over 600 days and included the first strike in the company’s almost 100-year history, which was the largest labor action in Wisconsin for over ten years. A rank-and-file member of the union documented the entire struggle, and the documentary includes emotional interviews with key members of the fight.
2024

The story of the South Shore Resource and Advocacy Center, five survivors of domestic violence, and their experience in the Massachusetts justice system.
2024

Wisconsin's tribe's ongoing fight to protect Lake Superior for future generations. "Bad River" shows the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa's long history of activism and resistance in the context of continuing legal battles with Enbridge Energy over its Line 5 oil pipeline. The Line 5 pipeline has been operating on 12 miles of the Bad River Band's land with expired easements for more than a decade. The Band and the Canadian company have been locked in a legal battle over the pipeline since 2019.
2024

UW faculty member Lynda Barry takes center stage in this charming documentary about the “Comics Room”, where Dr. Barry and her students–including a student turned faculty, comics veteran Jeff Butler–explore their creativity through the medium of comic books, creating a lively community of artists in the process.
2024

On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.
2022

A feature-length documentary on the life and work of Wisconsin grindhouse cinema auteur Bill Rebane, featuring historians, critics, and filmmakers, plus cast and crew members who worked with Rebane himself.
2021

Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
2020

The Miami-Dade Community Mental Health Project comes to life in this documentary, following a team of dedicated public servants working through the courts to steer people with mental illness on a path from incarceration to recovery.
2020

After eight years of one-party control, Wisconsin voters have found their lives increasingly irrelevant to state lawmakers. An ensemble of strong-willed Wisconsin women sets out to be heard in this unnerving portrait of American democracy.
2020

For over 80 years, Merle Hayden has crusaded to recruit members to the utopian movement Lawsonomy. Founded by aircraft pioneer Alfred Lawson, Lawsonomy advocates for economic reform and clean, communal living that transforms followers into a "New Species" that will benefit the human race either in this life or the next. Merle joined Lawson as a teenager and never looked back. His high school sweetheart Betty Kasch, however, is tired of Lawson coming between them. Reunited after over 60 years apart, non-believer Betty wants Merle to join her in Florida. Merle's commitment to preserving Lawson's legacy, artifacts currently rotting in a barn alongside a Wisconsin highway, has Betty worried Merle may leave her for Lawson once again.
2017

An in-depth look at the culture of Los Angeles in the ten years leading up to the 1992 uprising that erupted after the verdict of police officers cleared of beating Rodney King.
2017

The impact of mass incarceration is explored through an annual charity trip that takes children to visit their imprisoned mothers.
2017
“The Making of Justice” is a movie about seven prisoners working on the scenario for a crime film together with Sarah Vanhee. Like the main character in the film they are making up, they are all guilty of murder. To shape the story, they draw on their own experiences, ideas and desires. We, the viewers, can only guess whether they are using fiction as a means of confirming, transcending or transforming their present situation.
2017

A chronicle of the rise and fall of O.J. Simpson, whose high-profile murder trial exposed the extent of American racial tensions, revealing a fractured and divided nation.
2016

When a teenager from a political family in the Philippines is accused of a double murder, the country’s entire judicial system is put to the test after years of alleged corruption.
2011

American Movie documents the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
1999

Inspired by the book of the same name, film-maker James Marsh relays a tale of tragedy, murder and mayhem that erupted behind the respectable facade of Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the 19th century.
1999