A Once and Future Peace (2021)

• 79%
• 2021
• Documentary
• Eric Daniel Metzgar

In Seattle, Washington, the county government pilots a paradigm-shifting restorative justice program with the goal of keeping youths out of prison, bringing healing to disenfranchised families and communities, and reforming our dysfunctional justice system. With animation, the film tracks a Mexican-American youth facing four felony charges as he struggles through the program, shepherded by a former Cambodian gang leader. With live-action, the film flashes back to the indigenous origins of peacemaking circles in the Yukon and tracks the winding trajectory that brought the ancient practice from the past to the present.