About

RUN WITH IT is an animated documentary film that explores the crisis in the criminal justice system and the U.S. racial divide through the eyes of De’Jaun, a young African- American man on the Dean’s List at Morehouse College guided by the memory of his uncle Troy Davis who mentored him from death row.

In 1989, at the age of 19, Troy Davis was convicted of killing a white police officer in Savannah, Georgia in one of the most controversial and racially charged capital murder cases to go before the courts. Despite bipartisan protest, an international campaign of “too much doubt,” and legal appeals that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Troy Davis was executed in 2011. Now at the age his uncle was at the time of his conviction, De’Jaun looks back, a witness to the overwhelming costs of a biased judicial system, bereft of his closest family, striving  to imagine his own future.

Both a factual examination of Troy Davis’ case and an intimate look at the impact of the death penalty on an entire community, RUN WITH IT explores the deep flaws of our criminal justice system, raising profound questions about our democracy, the definition of justice, and our commitment to equality under the law. Through hand-drawn animation of interviews, archival footage, and court documents, as well as animated reenacted scenes, RUN WITH IT weaves the rich personal narratives of De’Jaun and his mother, Martina, who spent 20 years fighting for due process in her brother’s case, together with an unflinching look at the injustices that may have led to the execution of an innocent man.

Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmakers Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman whose “visually groundbreaking” and “searing” documentary Last Day of Freedom won a 2015 IDA Award for Best Documentary Short, a regional Emmy, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Their films have been described as “vital” portraits of race and class.