There, a select group of inmates working under the Restorative Justice Project create quilts that are then given to non-profits, charitable organizations, and—most importantly—children in the foster care system. And they are created by often grizzly-looking convicted criminals whose sentences of imprisonment range from decades to life.

Documentary filmmaker Jenifer McShane has created a moving, informative, and utterly compelling short film about these men and their work in The Quilters. 

McShane said she first heard about the program from the film’s editor, who had seen a news story about it. 

“This appealed to me for a lot of different reasons,” she offers. After visiting the prison and the men without her camera and just talking to them, she knew she had the makings of a great story to capture in documentary form.

“They were very gracious, and I spent several days just in the sewing room observing,” she says. “It had a lot of interesting qualities that I thought would be interesting to an audience, and especially quilters.”

In The Quilters we meet men like Fred, Ricky, Potter, Jeremiah, Rod, Jimmy, and “Chill,” who spend their days poking through fabric and materials (all of which are donated) and letting their imaginations run wild in a place one of them calls “organized chaos.”

Each quilt is designed, constructed, sewed, and finished entirely by the inmates. Some of the quilts come with special requests for themes or fabrics, which the men try to fulfill. 

And since they are working with sharp objects like scissors, rotary cutters, and needles, access to these potentially dangerous (especially in a prison situation) items are strictly restricted. Inmates have to have clean discipline records to even participate.

McShane’s lens shows one inmate having to leave the program for a violation that speaks to his level of dedication to the entire concept of quilting, as he was found with quilting tools in his cell.

Others see their participation in a broader lens then just making quilts. “This is my out. This is what puts me on the outside,” says Chill, a burly man serving a 25-year sentence. “When I do this here, I’m not even in here.”

The line made an immediate impact on McShane.

“That was a theme throughout. And I remember when he said it, I knew it had to be in the film. Other [quilters] have talked about having a Zen moment where working on a quilt takes them out of a situation. It’s creating art as a transformative moment,” she says.

“The basis of a good documentary is trust. So, if the subjects know that you’re there really to do your best to tell their story and be as authentic as you can, that makes for a good project. And they were very open and willing with this. That’s why there’s no narrator. I wanted them to tell their own story.”

Some of the men already had a connection to quilting and sewing, exposed to it either via a family member like a mother or grandmother who quilted. But the majority never sewed. One inmate, Ricky is the de facto leader of the group and is shown being extremely patient teaching a younger inmate working on his first quilt.

And Ricky is a perfectionist as well. When a quilt is put into a longarm for final stitching, he pulls it out to be picked back apart: the lay of the fabric was creating puffs and bubbles, and he didn’t want any imperfections in something that was going to be part of a child’s life forever.

McShane is aware of criticism she might face for “glorifying” or creating a sympathetic picture to a group of men who—let’s face it—committed some horrible crimes and acts that landed them in prison in the first place. 

Ricky talks openly about the family of the man whom he killed and what they will forever think of him. But McShane says the aim of the film is to highlight the very concept in the name of the program: Restorative Justice.

“I would push back a little bit on that and say my intent is not to glorify their crime or why they are there, but to show how they’re choosing to serve their time,” she says. 

“Whether it’s to make amends or give back to the community. And every quilt they make goes back to the community. So if we’re trying to send people away for life, why not give them a purpose in that time?”

As for the number one thing that surprised McShane once the final frame was shot, what she knew at the end of the process that she didn’t at the beginning, she says it had something to do with an idea that any member of a quilting bee in the free world knows a lot about: group harmony.

“I was surprised at how collaborative it was. And how much they cared about the final project. There was a sense of pride in perfection. That care and concern—not that I think they didn’t have it—but to see how much they had. And how much they cared about each other,” she says.

The Quilters notes that, to date, more than 2,000 quilts have been made and given out as part of the project.

The documentary’s end—which we won’t spoil here—is a touching segment that’s not likely to leave a dry eye in the audience. And brings the entire story full circle.

The Quilters is currently making the rounds of film festivals, and McShane says it will be available on Video on Demand soon. You can see the trailer and follow the film’s progress on its social media.

“It was like a beehive. A very busy room. We hear a lot about toxic masculinity and kind of aggression, and I know that’s there,” McShane sums up.

“But in this community, they created within the larger prison population, there was a lot of care and concern to do something positive and reframe what they thought of themselves. And create an imaginary bridge to the outside world. And they feel that they’re doing something constructive to make their families proud.”

View the trailer for The Quilters HERE.

Learn more about where the film will be screening on social media:
Facebook 
Instagram
X