Classroom 4
- Directed by: Eden Wurmfeld
- Released: 2026 (educational)
- Year of Production: 2025
CLASSROOM 4 is the story of an award-winning history professor leading a group of students, half incarcerated and half free, in a class titled THE HISTORY OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. Through exploring concepts including masculinity, prison abolition, and mercy, the work challenges the invisibility of incarcerated people, reveals the consequences of mass imprisonment for everyone, and emphasizes the importance of these programs to bring together the incarcerated and free to meet and know one another.
98th AcademyAwards® – Shortlist – Best Documentary Short Film
Critics Choice Documentary Awards – Nominee – Best Short Documentary
Aspen Film Shortsfest — Jury Award for Best Documentary
LA Shorts International Film Festival — Best Documentary — Immaculate Heart Community Filmmaker Award
"Letting prisoners vote wouldn't be radical. After all, Mass. did it for decades."
— by Reiko Hillyer — THE BOSTON GLOBE
A “bold and truthful exploration and confrontation of the prison industrial complex — and its effects on all of us, both inside and out — this film is a testament to human resilience, courage, and hope.” – Aspen Film ShortsFest, Jury Statement
"Classroom 4 is an incredibly powerful meditation on empathy and connection. It just has a wonderful humanizing power to it, which is what we make films for." — Edward Norton, Executive Producer
"Classroom 4 shows how an open-minded approach to education can both illuminate and heal, standing as one of the strongest examples of the form this season." Opal H. Bennett, POV Shorts Executive Producer & POV Senior Producer
Eden Wurmfeld is an Emmy-nominated fiction and documentary producer and director who is committed to ushering compelling characters and moving stories to the screen. As a filmmaker, Eden is not genre or subject driven; rather it is the heart, soul, and message of a particular story that give Eden the drive to bring a film to fruition.
Recent independent doc credits include Chasing Childhood (Abramorama) and The Big Scary “S” Word(Greenwich Entertainment). Previously, Eden produced the Netflix Original Saving Capitalism, featuring former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, which launched worldwide in 2017. Among her other documentary credits are No Impact Man (Sundance, Oscilloscope) Left on Purpose (Gunpowder and Steel), My So-Called Enemy (PBS) and Romeo Romeo(PBS).
Eden’s first documentary effort, the critically acclaimed ITVS Sunset Story, aired nationally on PBS Independent Lens in 2005 and won the jury award at the Tribeca Film Festival as well as the audience award at LAFF.
Eden is a member of AMPAS and the DGA—she is also a founding member of the Documentary Producers Alliance (DPA).
Yael Bridge is a documentary filmmaker whose work sits at the intersection of politics, economics, and social movements. Her first feature documentary, The Big Scary "S" Word, traces the history and resurgence of socialism in the US and premiered at Hot Docs and sold to Hulu. Her second feature, Who Moves America, was funded by ITVS and premiered at True/False. She produced Classroom 4, which was nominated for a Critics Choice Award, shortlisted for an Academy Award and broadcast on POV. She also produced Left on Purpose, winner of the Audience Award at DOC NYC, and Saving Capitalism, a Netflix Original, starring former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which was nominated for an Emmy Award. As Director of Productions at Inequality Media, she created viral videos unpacking complex political issues that gained over 200 million views on social media. Yael was included in DOCNYC's 40 Under 40 list and was President of the Documentary Producers Alliance, where she now sits on the board. She holds an MFA in Documentary Film and Video from Stanford University and an MA in Media Studies from the New School.