Governor Polis and his documentarian mom on 'Bridging Divides' | John Moore

Filmmaker, poet, humanist, matriarch and proud former flower child Susan Polis Schutz has dedicated much of her life to bridging divides between religions, ethnicities, nations, ages, genders, sexualities, laws and lawmakers. She’s walked the walk, poem after poem and reel after reel.

So she means it when she says she would not have been too terribly upset if her son, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, had grown up to be a, you know … conservative.

“As long as he was a good person, I wouldn't care,” Schutz said. “But if he were mean and divisive – that would upset me.”

Given their shared values, it is no coincidence that, in their different ways, mother and son are separately promoting a common agenda of mutual understanding in highly divisive times.

Polis, a Democrat, recently teamed up with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, for an ongoing initiative that addresses toxic polarization in America. The aim of the effort, led by the bipartisan National Governors Association: “Disagree Better.”

Schutz, a longtime peace activist who turned her poetry and her husband’s artwork into the Blue Mountain Arts greeting-card empire in 1971, took up documentary filmmaking in 2007. “Anyone and Everyone,” an intimate look at how children come out to their parents, was inspired by her experience with her son, who went on to become the country’s first openly gay governor in 2018. “Love Wins Over Hate” chronicled six white supremacists’ struggles to get out of the movement.

Schutz’s poems have been published in more than 450 million books and greeting cards worldwide, making her, as Polis puts it, “America's best-selling poet.” That couldn’t help but shape his own empathetic outlook.

“When I was growing up, my mother’s really thoughtful, meaningful poetry around friendship and love and bringing people together was certainly a powerful inspiration to millions of people – and that included me and my siblings,” he said.

“It's really amazing to think that her words have meant so much to so many people. I run into people all the time who say, ‘Your mother's cards got me through a tough time when I was young.’ It's great to think that she's brought so much joy and stronger relationships to so many people in Colorado, across America and around the world.”

Watch: 'Bridging Divides, Sharing Heartbeats'

Schutz’s ninth and latest film, “Bridging Divides, Sharing Heartbeats,” tells six uplifting stories from around the world that bring together seemingly disparate peoples. One shows how, in Northern Ireland, a group called PeacePlayers gets 2,500 Protestant and Catholic children to play the politically neutral sport of basketball together as a means for building lifelong friendships off the court.

Between 1969 and 1999, roughly 3,500 people died from political violence in Northern Ireland. “And nothing was achieved through violence that couldn’t have been achieved through peaceful means,” PeacePlayers Executive Director Gareth Harper says in the film.

Today, ironically named “peace walls” still separate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast. Children are still taught separately according to religion. Their identities remain forever forged in blood.

PeacePlayers is a basketball program – but it’s actually a peace-building and reconciliation program. “The goal,” Harper says, is to celebrate our diversity, rather than seeing someone else’s identity as a threat to yours.”

“Bridging Divides,” which can be watched online right now and will begin a series of national broadcasts on select PBS channels on Wednesday, also travels to Chicago, Omaha and Sacramento, where one nonprofit connects Muslim and Jewish women to create alliances.

“But the key thing to remember about the groups in this film is that none of them are trying to change the minds of other people,” Polis said. “The Muslims are not trying to convert the Jews. The Jews are not trying to convert the Muslims. Instead, it’s about trying to help people understand that we all share this planet, and that we're better off working together.”

You have likely seen the news coverage of when Joe Biden and Donald Trump showed up at the U.S.-Mexico border on the same February day trying to one-up each other on immigration, the hot-potato issue that may well determine the next U.S. president.

Schutz takes audiences to another part of the border to show them a different story that is both beautiful and miraculous: The annual Fandango Fronterizo Festival, which gathers musicians on both sides of the barbed wire in Tijuana and San Diego for a huge flamenco dance and music celebration attended by hundreds of people.

“I was getting really depressed from the news – all the divisiveness and meanness and all that,” said Schutz, who then came across a random article about Fandango Fronterizo. “Even though the wall is there, they don't cross it. The Americans are on the American side; the Mexicans are on the Mexican side. But they still play music and dance and come together until, as one woman told us, ‘We don't even see the wall at this point.’ It’s just such a beautiful thing.”

These are stories, the governor said, “that people really need to hear. Stories that give us hope. That show there is a brighter future. That show us there are people out there who are doing the important work of helping us learn to respect and love one another.”

Another powerful story that speaks urgently to divisions in the daily headlines is that of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, which has been joining young Palestinians and Israelis in song and dialogue since 2012. This is a group that envisions a Jerusalem defined not by hatred and violence but by an acknowledgement of a shared connection to the same place.

“That was amazing,” Schutz said. “Despite these obviously really difficult times, they're continuing with their philosophy that singing brings them together.” The chorus is wrapping up a U.S. tour today in Los Angeles, and every day of it, Schutz said, has been an opportunity for dialogue.

The founder of the chorus, Micah Hendler, is a Jew. Its executive director, Amer Abu Arqub, is a Palestinian. While Schutz was interviewing the two for the film, they had to run down to a bomb shelter because they heard sirens. But they were unfazed, she said, because for them, war is a constant.

“So they just started their rehearsal in the bomb shelter,” said Schutz. “I couldn't believe it. And now, with it even being more dangerous because of the Oct. 7 War, they're touring the U.S. Both guys are so upset. They've both lost family members. But their spirits just rally them to continue to perform because they believe so much in their mission.”

In preparing to make this, her most ambitious film to date, Schutz quickly realized that “literally, there are hundreds of groups like these trying to make a difference through a shared activity.” She researched 20 before settling on the six that are highlighted in her film. “But I could have featured 400 of them if I had unlimited time,” she said.

Polis admits he’s a tad partial, but he believes “Bridging Divides” is a film “that is just so needed now,” he said. “Is not about any specific political issue. It’s about creating a better way that people can live together, disagree better and learn to recognize that, in many ways, our differences are actually our strengths.

“You take these seemingly intractable challenges, like Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, and this film shows you that there is a better way, that people are making a difference every day, and that the actions of individuals does matter. I think people really need that hope right now.”

Schutz, who turns 80 in May, hopes people take the time to watch her latest film because art – and specifically film, she said – has the unique ability to help people understand and manage conflict, either at home or globally, in a welcoming way.

“I think that art taps into our common humanity, and it reminds us that no matter where we are from, or what we look like, or what we believe, in the end, all people are one,” she said. “We all want a family. We want to be loved. We want to earn a living. We want to have good health.

“We have more similarities than we do differences.”

Schutz deferred her final thoughts on the film to Trevor Ringland, one of the organizers of that PeacePlayers basketball program in Northern Ireland. “He said it so much better than I can,” she said. What he said was that those who learn to play together can live together.

“Hatred doesn’t work,” Ringland said. “Friendship does.”