“Classroom 4,” a 2025 documentary short spotlighting a college course taught inside an Oregon prison, was screened at the Vanderbilt Law School Oct. 27. The screening was co-hosted by Vanderbilt Law School’s George Barrett Social Justice Program and Criminal Justice Program, Vanderbilt’s Undergraduate Department of Cinema and Media Arts, Department of Communication Studies and the Women in Film student association.
The 39-minute film was directed by Eden Wurmfeld and follows Reiko Hillyer, an award-winning history professor at Lewis & Clark College. Hillyer’s semester-long Inside-Out Prison Exchange program brought together 15 incarcerated and 15 nonincarcerated students in her course, “The History of Crime and Punishment in the United States.”
The documentary short won Best Documentary at the 2025 Aspen Shortsfest and was shortlisted as Best Documentary Short Film during the 98th Academy Awards. The film was recognized for its transformative exploration of topics such as the conditions within American prisons, reintegration into society and the common cycle of victimization.
These topics were explored in the short film through the breaking down of barriers between the walls of an Oregon prison and the outside world. Hillyer has taught this course inside the prison since 2012, meeting with students every Friday for about three–and–a half months. The film was shot during the spring 2023 semester and opens with the group’s first class session, “Ice Breakers and the Birth of the Person.” In this introductory class, Hillyer prompted students to find common ground through reminiscing on simple shared experiences: the weirdest thing they had ever eaten, their favorite childhood book or toy and the quality they value most in another person.
Through these introductory exercises, Hillyer unified the two groups of classmates who may have first seen each other as different, reminding them how much they had in common, even as one group returned to their cells after class while the other went home.
The film later spotlights the group’s fourth session “Myths and Realities of Prison Life,” during which outside students toured the prison facility and observed the rows of bunk beds and open-living circumstances where their classmates lived. A few of the incarcerated students pointed out that the tour only shows a fraction of their true living circumstances. Nick, an incarcerated student, noted that the prison “tour” fails to capture the daily reality of living in close quarters.
Incarcerated student Ky’Ron described life in prison as “everything crammed in one box,” recounting how he shared three toilets with nearly 73 people. Aside from the physical conditions of prison life, the incarcerated students frequently discussed feeling disconnected from the outside world and losing track of time.
“I can’t tell you the last time I made a call and wished somebody happy birthday,” Joey, an inside student, said. “I forget my own birthday in here.”
Although the crime, conviction and life experiences of the students featured in the film varied, the incarcerated and nonincarcerated students managed to forge deeply meaningful connections with each other on topics from shared love of poems by Shel Silverstein to battling with addiction. Alicia, a nonincarcerated student, made an emotional connection to incarcerated classmates through her journey of overcoming drug addiction. Toward the end of the film, she encouraged her classmates, reminding them that they do not need to stay in prison to stay sober and that social services are readily available to assist in recovery.
The documentary short additionally featured the teachings of Hillyer across a broad range of abolitionist texts, culturally focused exercises and historical framings of the prison and judicial systems. Hillyer guided students through readings and discussions including Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” and Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”
Inside the walls of the Oregon prison, Hillyer’s teachings carried a hefty weight. Oftentimes, Hillyer prompted the students with tough, raw questions to look at their lives beyond the prison system and at their own pasts. At one point, she asked the students to imagine themselves frozen at the young age of 13. One incarcerated student discussed his fear of growing up to resemble those who raised him, while another expressed remorse on the harm he had caused, reflecting on how his younger self might have viewed his future actions. For nonincarcerated students like Madeline, these emotionally heavy conversations were the point of this program.
“The work that we are doing here is oftentimes witnessing other people’s pain and suffering that they are going through. Seeing each other and trying to reconcile that pain in the larger systems we are looking at, that is something that is very complex and takes a long period of time,” Madeline said. “We are taking a semester, but I know the things that I have heard and said in this class will last longer than a semester.”
Following the screening, Vanderbilt Associate Professor of Communication Studies Isaac West moderated a discussion with “Classroom 4” director Eden Wurmfeld, Hillyer and Nick, a formerly incarcerated student featured in the film had recently been released from prison. In the film, Nick often spoke passionately about the importance of interconnection and finding a community within prison, recalling his family’s advice to seek fellow Native American people throughout his time incarcerated.
Since his release from prison, Nick has gotten married, found a job and home, and has been on a handful of trips across the country to Washington, D.C., Colorado and California. Reflecting on his 16 years in prison, Nick described his time in Hillyer’s class as one of his most valuable educational experiences.
Hillyer also highlighted how the course had influenced participants’ career paths, noting that one of her nonincarcerated students entered the class with aspirations of becoming a prosecutor and now currently works to help the incarcerated gain access to legal justice and empowerment after experiencing the prison exchange.
Junior Tessa Sodowick left the screening reflecting on the stigmas and cyclical societal responses to life following incarceration.
“The film really emphasized the importance of focusing on resources that allow reintegration into society for those that have been incarcerated and spreading awareness for not letting a single action define one’s future and life successes,” Sodowick said.
“Classroom 4” is a consequential and emotionally evocative film that undoubtedly raised important conversations on the conditions in prisons, maintaining one’s identity and personhood during incarceration and the importance of second chances. The emotional goodbyes during the last class session affirmed the power of creating a space for equalized human connection where each student is not viewed merely as the perpetrator of a crime, but rather as a thinker with beliefs and the ability to make worthwhile connections.