Over the past year, Inquest and the Institute to End Mass Incarceration (Inquest’s publisher) have been proud to build a partnership with Represent Justice, a powerful advocacy and narrative organization that grew out of the impact campaign for the film Just Mercy, inspired by the life and legacy of Bryan Stevenson, a landmark human rights lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Together, we’ve been able to highlight Represent Justice’s leadership and filmmaking. And, more recently, we’ve deepened that partnership by teaming up on an impact campaign centered on the Institute’s Exposing Prisons Project, with Represent Justice releasing a two-part social media series about our partnership earlier this summer.
This fall, in continuation of this partnership, Inquest will be sharing a series of short films made by Represent Justice’s 2026 cohort of Ambassadors. Represent Justice’s Ambassador Program equips system-impacted leaders—its Ambassadors—with the creative and technical skills to produce short films rooted in their lived experience and expertise, and to lead impact campaigns that advance change. It also provides Ambassadors with ongoing opportunities, including in professional development, public speaking engagements, wellness, and peer connection. Through the program and various impact campaigns, Represent Justice is working to shift the narrative around the carceral system.
As Represent Justice releases its 2026 films throughout the fall, Inquest will publish a monthly feature highlighting the release’s four thematic batches. The groupings trace several connected questions: What forms of care might replace punishment? What does reentry practically require? How does punishment persist beyond prison? And what forms of collective imagination are necessary to build different futures?
Photograph: 2026 Represent Justice Showcase , courtesy of Represent Justice