In a week of divisiveness, fear and shock, the premier of Justice and Justice LLC’s “Walk a Mile in Their Shoes” delivered a much-needed message of compassion, understanding, and the importance of finding commonalities.

The documentary debuted on Saturday, November 12 in front of about 120 attendees from diverse backgrounds and ages at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMOCA). Considering that the event was scheduled during the Badger football homecoming game on a sunny Saturday in November, I was impressed by the turnout.

The movie followed five different marginalized people as they told their stories. The subjects included a Menominee man, a homeless man, a Mexican undocumented immigrant with an American wife and their family, a transgender woman, and a man who recently finished an 18-year prison sentence. The audience groaned when the Menominee man’s recently-discovered brother died of cancer at a young age and gasped when the incarcerated man described his sentencing hearing. You could feel the empathy and desire to understand emanating from the crowd throughout the film.

After the screening, the messages of empathy, compassion, and understanding continued to flow when the five subjects got up on stage together. Audience members expressed appreciation for them being so brave about sharing the intimate details of their stories. Everyone talked about the fact that we never truly know what people are going through and approaching our fellow humans with compassion is needed now more than ever. Seeing the subjects on stage after hearing such poignant and sometimes brutal details of their lives was very humanizing.

Some of the production elements of the film could have been better, such as the transitions between takes, poor lighting on subjects’ faces, shaky camera work, and inconsistencies in volume and background noise, but this was Justice and Justice’s first film, and it certainly still conveyed the message it intended.

In a world where we spend most of our time with those who are similar to us and often only scratch the surface of people’s stories, this film served as a reminder of the importance of approaching people and situations non-judgmentally with an intent to understand. This film should be required in college courses to spread a message of inclusion, justice, and peace.