Purple

RTT’s short film tells the story of Americans with opposing viewpoints confronting their differences and discovering the concerns and humanity that lie behind each other’s positions.

Filmed in a swing region in rural Wisconsin and Iowa, Purple presents a rare political conversation that uplifts, provokes, and inspires while going toward the heat of passionate political differences.

Purple has reached more than 100,000 viewers—from members of Congress to middle school students—and screened in hundreds of universities, churches, synagogues, schools, museums, think tanks, and public libraries in 49 states, from rural North Dakota, Mississippi, and Montana to Brooklyn, DC, and LA. 

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Purple Teaser

Free Discussion Guide with skill-building

Our free, robust discussion guide offers a carefully structured 90-minute process that includes skill-building for challenging conversations and everything you need to build skills and host a screening in your institution or community. The process is suitable for religious groups, classrooms, informal watch parties, and large audiences alike, and has been used with groups of 15, 50, and 500.

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Host A screening

Please complete the application form and we will be in touch soon. 

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TESTIMONIALs
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Purple is an ideal teaching tool with sufficient depth to re-watch and use in many different ways—to introduce the concept of dialogue, to illustrate facilitation skills, and to promote dialogue on a range of issues. I am so excited to use this in Rotary clubs and committees as well as classes I teach.”

Sarah, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Missouri School of Law
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I have long had a poster that read ‘Un otro mundo es possible’ (Another world is possible.) This film helped me really believe it.”

Don, Pastor, rural Wisconsin
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The biggest takeaway is a reminder that, when people actually sit down and listen to each other without anger or resistance, we can move toward a shared understanding of issues. If I could do one thing with this film it would be to make it required viewing for our elected leaders, especially Congress. Civility and taking the time to really hear each other is essential.”

Debora, Interim Dean, University of Mississippi School of Journalism
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The message of this film and the work it documents is one of hope. Dealing with our deep differences is critical to addressing our challenges and holding together our American experiment. Purple shows that the hard conversations we need are possible. The film is so well done, moving, even inspiring, and exactly what we desperately need right now.”

Todd, Former Chief of Staff, Republican Senator & George W. Bush Appointee
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I have read these techniques for creating a space for people to listen to each other, but in reading them they sound like pie in the sky and kumbaya like goals. I thought there is no way this would work.

But in watching this, I saw them working in action and understood how they are not far-fetched at all. This screening and discussion gave me hope for collaboration and conversation across lines of difference. It also showed me how important this is, because without these kinds of discussions we make dangerous assumptions about who we deem as ‘the other.’”

Troy, Community Activist & Leader, Brooklyn
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I've never seen anything like Purple before, where people from a genuinely diverse set of life experiences and political thought are represented.

Purple showed everyone as human and as worthy of engagement and as capable of decision making and growth. It was literally the first time in my life I felt I was welcome in a mainstream social justice space not only as a professor's daughter, lady with a degree, social justice person but also as a mechanic's kid from the south who can drive on dirt roads.”

Jesse, Engagement Associate, Dickinson College, Pennsylvania
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We watched this film on election day, and it was such a wonderful resource to show middle school students at this time.

When we talked before the screening about how they were feeling, they expressed a wide range of emotions—from apathetic to very angry or worried. The film seemed to speak to them wherever they were at. Purple provides a combination of very valuable elements right now: a clear look at some of the significant differences we face in our country, and a model for what humane and productive conversation can look like across those differences.”

Catherine, Middle School Teacher, Massachusetts
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At a time when it is so easy to be hopeless, Purple reminded me that the human connection we share runs far deeper than the angry and fear-filled world of politics we're living in now.”

Kim, Public Librarian, Kansas City, Kansas

Past Screenings

October 14, 2024

Onalaska United Methodist Church (Onalaska, Wisconsin)

September 25, 2024

Bethlehem Covenant Church (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

September 17, 2024

League of Women Voters (Denver, Colorado)

August 21, 2024

Red Clay School District (Wilmington, Delaware)

August 18, 2024

Temple Sinai Social Action (Rochester, New York)

July 7, 2024

First Presbyterian Church of Spruce Pine (Spruce Pine, North Carolina)

June 21, 2024

Iowa Libertarian Party of Benton County (Vinton, Iowa)

March 24, 2024

Resolutionaries (Los Angeles, California)

February 2, 2024

Glen Rock Library (Glen Rock, New Jersey)

January 31, 2024

Civic Nebraska and University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Lincoln, Nebraska)

December 15, 2023

Zioness (New York, New York)

December 2, 2023

Westfield Memorial Library (Westfield, New Jersey)

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