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It was the type of case that died in a settlement before it ever had a chance to be argued in court.

That's why human rights lawyer Eric Sirotkin went from defending his client's right to free speech to spending $105,000 on the production of a documentary that focuses on the restrictions of free speech in a time of war.

Sirotkin represented former humanities teacher and poetry coach Bill Nevins in court during 2003 and 2004. Nevins lost his job at Rio Rancho High School after student Courtney Butler, using the high school intercom, read an anti-war poem that criticized President Bush, called the United States a godless country and referred to the war in Iraq as an "arrogant bid for modern imperialism."

"I wasn't specifically leading a protest regarding the war," Nevins said. "I was just coaching a poetry team."

The high school placed Nevins on paid administrative leave that spring and did not renew his contract for the fall.

A documentary about those events, "Committing Poetry in Times of War," will have its Albuquerque premiere Downtown at the KiMo Theater on Saturday. It examines free speech rights by studying the Rio Rancho case and the suspension of several other teachers in the Albuquerque area.

"Committing Poetry in Times of War" uses the poetry of local slam poets, investigative journalism, interviews with former Rio Rancho high school students and controversial e-mails from the school counselor to make a point.

The film also showcases the anti-war protests in 2003 with a focus on the 17 arrests and multiple injuries that followed the firing of tear gas and bean bag bullets at demonstrators in the University Area by police in riot gear.

"There's a lot of graphic footage of the police conduct at some of the events," Sirotkin said. "And then the notion of `free speech in a box,' we call it, which is free-speech zoning."

Sirotkin said that corralling demonstrators and forcing them to protest in designated zones has become more common.

"Freedom of speech is a little messier than that," Sirotkin said. "It kind of goes out into the streets and marches, and it's kind of meant for people to see. Otherwise it becomes meaningless."

The documentary's director, Stavros, who goes by one name, said it was brave of the city to show the film even though the Albuquerque's leaders end up looking like brutes in it.

Sirotkin compared the film to a closing argument in a case.

"It provides a venue to pull together pieces of a story and show how they relate to each other and show a kind of path in a direction toward justice," Sirotkin said.

Sirotkin hopes to develop a weeklong curriculum out of the film. He wants to visit schools with Stavros and break down the film so students can learn to be active participants in a democracy.

After Nevins lost his job, the poetry team, known as the Ram Slam Write Club, was disbanded.

"Because there was nobody to run the poetry team it was closed down," Nevins said. "The students told the press that they couldn't have a team without a sponsor, and they went to many, many teachers and no teacher would take the job."

"Even after, when I met these kids a year later, they had very deep-seated guilt that they had done something wrong," Stavros said. "You don't do that to a kid. You don't tell a budding flower, `You're ugly.' You don't make it wilt. To a large extent the children wilted."

Jeff Harrington, a 22-year-old education major at UNM and a former member of the Ram Slam Write Club who is interviewed in the documentary, said it was good that someone like Sirotkin cared about the issue of free speech.

"The film is part of my holistic lawyering effort around the Bill Nevins case," Sirotkin said. "It's that we don't just secure justice and growth through litigation, through a courtroom, which is often very limiting, but we need to look at how we can take an issue and a conflict and make it have as large of an impact and make it hopefully empower people who may have been disempowered when they heard a teacher got fired.

"When a teacher gets fired it sends a ripple through the teaching community - `I'd better keep my mouth shut. I better not get involved in controversy.'

"They could not get a single teacher at Rio Rancho High School, the largest high school in the state of New Mexico, to take over the poetry team after Bill left. And they still don't have one."

Harrington said he dreads the day where he might be put in a position similar to the one Nevins was put in. He is interested in starting a poetry group or freelance painting group where the children are allowed to write or paint stuff they wouldn't normally be able to express in school.

"I just hope to make them feel comfortable enough to tell me what they feel is important," Harrington said.

Sirotkin said he committed to the expense of the documentary because he wanted to show people what they can do with their lives.

"Committing Poetry in Times of War" won a New Visions award from the state Film Office in 2006, and Sirotkin has since begun his own production company, Ubuntuworks.

"Hopefully, it models for other lawyers, too, that their case doesn't have to end when they think it has to end," Sirotkin said.