CONTEMPLATING FORGIVENESS  

The film can help faith communities explore spiritual themes of justice, forgiveness, and accountability – both individual and collective.  It offers the opportunity for faith-based groups to examine their own responsibility to communities like Dorchester struggling with poverty, violence, police brutality, and a failed discriminatory criminal justice system.  It also opens discussion for participants to examine their own beliefs about the nature of justice.

For survivors and victims this film is a powerful exploration of the dynamics of forgiveness, healing, and accountability.  Different people in the film heal in different ways and on different timetables.  The voices of the victims are front and center in CIRCLE UP; there are few platitudes and empty reassurances.  Instead there is raw pain, genuine transcendence, and post-traumatic growth.  Through this film, victims can begin to examine their own experiences of justice and healing.