Latest news with #TheEncampments
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Encampments director Kei Pritsker: ‘The students risked a lot to stand with the people of Gaza. That's tremendous'
The Palestine solidarity encampments at Columbia University , in uptown Manhattan, were not the first such US student protests during the continuing Gaza conflict. But they came to be the most impactful. Beginning in April 2024, the occupation saw tents spreading across the Morningside Heights campus of the Ivy League institution. Flags and banners were unfurled. Chants went up. That first protest, seeking Columbia's financial divestment from Israel, was broken up when Minouche Shafik, the university's president, authorised the New York Police Department to enter the campus and conduct mass arrests. Nothing like this had happened since the 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War. 'Columbia wasn't actually the first campus to set up an encampment,' Kei Pritsker, director of a fine new documentary on the protests, confirms. 'Stanford University, Vanderbilt University – they also had encampments going. But the whole world saw how Columbia had called the police on their own students – students who paid tuition to study at that school, only to be arrested by their own faculty, by their own school administration.' Pritsker's The Encampments stands as a lucid, sober examination of a still-developing story. The director, unapologetically on the side of the protesters, reflects that mood in his own conversation. He lays out the case calmly. The anger is implied, not explicit. READ MORE 'People saw this happening in broad daylight,' he says. 'These videos were circulated around the world. There was so much outrage over the treatment of students who weren't bothering anyone, who were protesting peacefully. The hypocrisy of it all. The fact that the students were saying, 'Hey, we're doing this in the spirit of education.'' The protests spread across the United States' universities and then across the world. The students in Manhattan returned and tensions continued to mount. There were disputes about anti-Semitic incidents happening in the vicinity of the encampments. The university ended up cancelling its graduation ceremony in May of 2024. Shafik resigned that August. Future histories will position all the testimonies in proper context, but The Encampments is an invaluable first draft. There is a lot to unpick here about the general condition of American education and, more specifically, about its relationship with the almighty dollar. 'The schools have this false reputation – it's almost a caricature – that's been built up by conservatives, that they are run by Marxists, by leftists,' Pritsker says of the top US universities. 'The reality is the schools are really run like businesses, especially the private institutions. In the United States the average American pays more for education than any person in the world, but we have very low outcomes for education. 'That's because the schools are run like a business. The money is not just being invested in big sports stadiums and huge monuments but also just in inflating the endowment of the school. Inflating the investment portfolio. Buying real-estate investments.' [ Protesting students will not be shamed, badgered or bribed into silence Opens in new window ] The film puts the case that Columbia's vigorous response to the protests was driven more by financial concerns than by any ideological unease. 'It's clear to us that Columbia's main consideration was how their donors would feel about their reaction to the protests, not whether the school was on the moral side of history or if they were actually invested in genocide,' Pritsker says. 'They were concerned with pleasing their donors – who happened to support Israel.' The Encampments further argues that members of Columbia's board of trustees may have direct interest in organisations that would suffer if the university divested as demanded by the students. 'They're titans of industry. They are wealthy. They are influential in politics and in culture,' he says, moving on to discuss a former secretary of homeland security. 'We talk about a few like Jeh Johnson, who is someone who sits on the Columbia board of trustees and also sits on the board of Lockheed Martin, which is a weapons manufacturer that builds weapons that are sold to Israel.' Pritsker, a journalist with BreakThrough News , did not initially set out to make a film about the phenomenon. He went to Columbia first to report on the early protests. Some of his footage from that visit made it into the final project. 'I had been in contact with the Columbia students since then,' he says. 'So when they were setting up the encampment they reached out to me and said, 'Hey, do you want to cover this? You know the administration isn't listening to our demands. They're ignoring us completely. They are banning our student groups. They're looking the other way. So we're setting up this encampment.'' Pritsker went back to the university and began filming. He felt it would be just a straightforward news package, but when rumours emerged of imminent arrests he realised that he might have a larger story to tell. He hung around, and the next morning the first police actions took place. Then information came in that other colleges across the nation were setting up their own encampments. Pritsker found himself monitoring the progress of a mighty wave. 'I asked the students, 'Hey, can I live with you guys?'' he says. 'So I lived in the encampment for the next 12 days – all really as a journalist. I had no intention of making a film out of any of this.' News reports suggest that the encampments temporarily transformed the whole atmosphere in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Cops were everywhere. The press was hovering. Chants and cheers were audible. Did Pritsker get that sense of the protests bleeding out into the wider community? 'That was a big part of it that we didn't quite get to address in the film,' he says. 'This was a citywide, and a countrywide, and a globalwide encampment at Columbia. Every single night and every single day people were going to the gates of Columbia to chant very loudly – loudly enough that the students in the camp could hear them chanting in support.' He goes on to argue that the issue of the genocide in Gaza is not something 'that stops at the university gates'. This was a concern that, one way or another, energised the whole community. 'It should come as no surprise that people in New York City wanted to express their support for the students,' he says. 'Without that support the encampment wouldn't have survived, but the students inside were receiving tons and tons of food.' [ Irish J1 visa students urged to be informed of potential risks of 'activism' in US Opens in new window ] All well and good. But student protests have, to put it delicately, never been universally popular with the wider public. There was, in the blue-collar US, at least as much outrage at student militancy of the late 1960s as there was support. And Columbia is not just some community college. These are elite students at the most prestigious of universities. 'To a degree, there is an aspect of that,' he says. 'The movement hasn't quite reached blue-collar America. There is a perception that the movement is solely for people who consider themselves progressive or left-wing. When it's really not. I think that is kind of where the movement needs to go. It needs to broaden and approach people who might consider themselves conservative or right-wing.' The Encampments does, at least, push aside the notion that there is nothing at stake for the protesters. Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist at Columbia and one of the lead negotiators during the protest, is interviewed at length. In March this year Khalil was arrested by immigration officials in his university accommodation. 'Mahmoud is still in prison in Jena, Louisiana,' Pritsker says. 'He's still facing potential deportation. Some judges have issued orders slowing down the process, and obviously he has tremendous public support. 'So anything the Trump administration tries to do to Mahmoud will be heavily watched and criticised. They're trying to be really careful, and it's not clear that the administration has a solid case to do this.' Few of the protesters are facing anything like that sort of challenge. But there are risks for even those from more comfortable backgrounds. 'They have all these shiny little objects waved in front of them: lucrative careers, fancy job titles, all this,' Pritsker says, wryly. 'And the fact is they rejected that entirely. They said, 'We don't care about any of these bribes, these little trinkets that you're offering us. We want to stand with the people of Gaza at great detriment to our own safety and our own reputation.' That's tremendous.' The Encampments is in cinemas from Friday, June 6th
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Film review: Documentary executive produced by Macklemore 'a gripping account of speaking truth to power'
Dangerous Animals ★★★☆☆ Humans are the most rapacious predators on the planet, of course, but what if a human was to double down on his lethal potential by teaming up with a shark? That's the basic idea behind Dangerous Animals (16s), which stars Hassie Harrison as Zephyr, an American surfer bumming around Australia chasing the next big wave. Enter Tucker (Jai Courtney), a bluff and good-natured captain of a charter boat that allows tourists to swim with sharks from the safety of an iron cage. In his downtime, alas, Tucker has a nasty habit of abducting young women and spiriting them off to sea before feeding them to the sharks and recording the ensuing carnage. But when he kidnaps Zephyr off a quiet beach in the early hours before dawn, Tucker has no idea that he has bitten off more than even his beloved sharks can chew… Written by Nick Lepard and directed by Sean Byrne, Dangerous Animals offers a nautical variation on Australia's fascination with the lunatic Outback killer. Hassie Harrison in Dangerous Animals (2025) As always, we are given very little by way of the killer's motivation – Tucker, we learn early, is a shark attack survivor, although that hardly explains his misogynistic obsession with cold-bloodedly murdering young women in such a grisly fashion. And grisly it most definitely is: the scene in which Zephyr's fellow captive Heather (Ella Newton) dies in the midst of a feeding frenzy is deeply disturbing, and not least because it's being filmed for the purpose of entertainment. Nick Lepard and Sean Byrne may well be making a point here about the wholesale slaughter of young women in exploitative horror flicks; if they are, it's clumsily made and gratuitously gruesome. That said, Jai Courtney is charmingly avuncular (at least initially) as the psychopathic Tucker, although Hassie Harrison makes a much more impressive splash as the smart, tough and brilliantly resourceful Zephyr. (theatrical release) The Encampments ★★★★★ The Encampments (12A) is a documentary by Kei Pritsker and Michael T. Workman that opens in April 2024 with students on the lawn of Columbia University protesting the slaughter in Gaza, declaring their solidarity with Palestine, and demanding that the university divest the portion of its endowments that is invested in US and Israeli weapons companies. The protest goes viral, resulting in encampments springing up in universities all over America and further afield, but the majority of the film plays out at Columbia, where the students quickly find themselves besieged by the university administration, the NYPD and those in the media who allege antisemitism and terrorism. Linking the events to similar, anti-Vietnam War protests at Columbia in 1968, Pritsker and Workman provide context with a potted history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948, and also include heart-breaking footage from the war in Gaza. It can be argued that the filmmakers, who make no secret of the fact that they were embedded with the protestors, are offering only one side of this particular story; nevertheless, The Encampments is a gripping account of speaking truth to power. (theatrical release) Juliet and Romeo ★★☆☆☆ Juliet and Romeo (12A) stars Clara Rugaard and Jamie Ward as the star-crossed lovers, although writer-director Timothy Scott Bogart substitutes contemporary speech for Shakespeare's poetry, inserts a number of rousing (if rather bland) pop anthems into the story, and provides a backdrop of imminent invasion to add spice to Verona's long-running civil war between Capulet and Montague. Juliet & Romeo, the pop musical, stars Clara Rugaard as Juliet and Jamie Ward as Romeo. It's a bold attempt at a modern makeover, and there's some interesting character actors in the supporting roles: Rupert Everett delivers an arch Lord Capulet, Derek Jacobi hams it up unmercifully as Friar Lawrence, while Jason Isaacs mooches around in the background muttering Lord Montague's premonitions of impending doom. The leads, alas, lack chemistry. Clara Rugaard shines as the irreverent Juliet, but Jamie Ward is vacuous as Romeo, and overall the timeless tragedy of fair Verona is largely reduced to an extended '80s pop video. (theatrical release)
The National
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
New documentary on Gaza protests to have Scottish premiere
The Encampments, directed by Kei Pritsker and Michael T Workman and starring Maya Abdallah, Jamal Joseph, Mahmoud Khalil, Grant Miner, Sueda Polat, follows the Gaza solidarity protests which took place at universities across the world in 2024. The film will have premiere in Scotland at the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh as well as the Glasgow Film Theatre on June 6. READ MORE: Jeremy Corbyn brings in bill for public inquiry into UK complicity in Gaza genocide The film's description reads: "The Encampments is a brave and powerful new documentary following the Palestine solidarity protests that erupted across university campuses in 2024. "With gripping footage of the protesters' struggle, the film shows the peaceful nature of the movement and the momentous challenges it faces. Featuring detained activist Mahmoud Khalil, alongside professors, whistleblowers and organisers, the film captures the deeper stakes of a historic moment that continues to reverberate across the globe. "Timely, urgent and filled with a clear-eyed fury, The Encampments is a rallying cry for those who refuse to be silenced and a message of hope for the people of Palestine." Activist Khalil, a student at Columbia University in New York city, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in March this year over his role in the pro-Palestine protests and occupations on his university's campus. READ MORE: Foreign Office met with pro-Israel lobbyist to discuss arms sales Encampments also took place at universities across Scotland, including in Edinburgh, where students – co-ordinated by the Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society (EUJPS) – set up tents in the university's Old College courtyard. The Edinburgh screening will be followed by a Q&A discussion panel, featuring Suha, a member of EUJPS, alongside Sarah McCaffer, co-convenor of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The Encampments will screen at Cameo in Edinburgh on Friday, June 6 at 6pm. Click here to get tickets. The Glasgow Film Theatre will also screen the film on Friday at 4pm and 8.45pm. Click here to buy tickets.
Business Mayor
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Mayor
Why are some trying to silence our film on Columbia's Gaza protests?
R ecently, The Encampments opened at the Angelika Film Center in New York to a record-setting box office for an independent film – along with a storm of controversy. For us, as the distributor, the atmosphere was far from celebratory. The theater was forced to hire additional security, notify police and prepare staff for harassment in response to protests and threats from people who hadn't even seen the film. What is so dangerous about Palestinian films? The Encampments offers unprecedented access to the student protest movement for divestment against Israel's genocide in Gaza that began at Columbia University and spread nationwide. It captures the raw, unfiltered reality of the encampments and the students who risked their futures to speak out. It directly challenges the dominant, distorted narrative portraying these protests as violent or antisemitic, revealing instead a disciplined, principled movement rooted in solidarity, anti-racism, free speech and human rights – with many Jewish students at the core. That, it seems, is enough to make many feel threatened. We're now in an era in which even mentioning the word 'Palestine' is treated as a provocation. Donald Trump has openly used 'Palestinian' as a slur to attack opponents. Under his second administration, suppression and fearmongering are reaching levels more typical of a dictatorship than a democracy. Student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil, featured in the film, and Rumeysa Ozturk have been snatched by plainclothes Ice officers, disappeared from public view and threatened with deportation for criticizing Israel. This isn't dystopian fiction. This is the United States in 2025. And yet, films like The Encampments are being met with hostility. Before opening weekend, an angry patron vandalized the Angelika lobby and berated staff. Meanwhile, social media ads for the film are being censored. Behind it all is a pattern: politically motivated efforts to silence Palestinian voices. It's not just wrong, it's a threat to our most fundamental freedom: the right to free speech. When the Academy-shortlisted documentary From Ground Zero, which we also distribute, was released, it was widely praised for its humanist lens and deliberate avoidance of politics. Despite that and near perfect reviews, CUFI (Christians United for Israel) sent letters to Academy voters urging them not to support the film and pressured theaters to pull it. After a screening was scheduled in Gainesville, Florida, the venue received threats from donors to withdraw funding. It's extremely unfair for venue owners to be put in such a situation by politically driven pressure campaigns. We hope that despite attempts to intimidate them, theaters will not succumb to the pressure, and instead will make the right moral and business decision to show these films, for which there is clearly an appetite. The pressure doesn't end with threats or vandalism. Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar-winning No Other Land, was beaten by Israeli settlers and soldiers, seemingly in retaliation for filming what Israel wants hidden. According to Ballal, his name and the word 'Oscar' were shouted during the attack. And just last week, we were devastated to learn that the Gaza-based journalist Fatima Hassouna was killed in an Israeli airstrike the very same week a film featuring her as the main subject was accepted into the Cannes film festival. In Miami Beach, the city's mayor threatened to shut down O Cinema for screening No Other Land. When elected officials dictate what art can or cannot be shown, we're no longer dealing with discourse – we're dealing with censorship. And yet, the tides are slowly turning. Attempts to silence these films have failed. No Other Land won an Academy Award. The assault on Ballal prompted international outcry. The mayor of Miami Beach backed down. CUFI's letters were largely ignored. And films such as From Ground Zero, No Other Land and The Encampments are proving through box office performance that there is a strong demand. Still, there is a long road ahead. Arabs and Muslims remain deeply underrepresented in the film industry, both in front of and behind the camera. Zooming in further, Palestinians in specific are virtually invisible, with Mo Amer standing as a rare and singular exception. This is the crux: Palestinian films aren't dangerous because they incite violence. They're 'dangerous' because they offer a perspective contrary to the dominant narrative of the US government and Israel. The Encampments is not just a film – it's a test. Of courage, of integrity and of whether this country still believes in freedom of expression. Theaters that screen it are doing more than showing a documentary. They are standing up for the idea that cinema should remain a space for free speech and artistic expression. The question is: do all voices actually have an equal right to be heard – and if so, when will industry leaders stop being complicit in their silencing? The answer should have come long ago – but it's not too late.
The Guardian
03-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Why are some trying to silence our film on Columbia's Gaza protests?
Recently, The Encampments opened at the Angelika Film Center in New York to a record-setting box office for an independent film – along with a storm of controversy. For us, as the distributor, the atmosphere was far from celebratory. The theater was forced to hire additional security, notify police and prepare staff for harassment in response to protests and threats from people who hadn't even seen the film. What is so dangerous about Palestinian films? The Encampments offers unprecedented access to the student protest movement for divestment against Israel's genocide in Gaza that began at Columbia University and spread nationwide. It captures the raw, unfiltered reality of the encampments and the students who risked their futures to speak out. It directly challenges the dominant, distorted narrative portraying these protests as violent or antisemitic, revealing instead a disciplined, principled movement rooted in solidarity, anti-racism, free speech and human rights – with many Jewish students at the core. That, it seems, is enough to make many feel threatened. We're now in an era in which even mentioning the word 'Palestine' is treated as a provocation. Donald Trump has openly used 'Palestinian' as a slur to attack opponents. Under his second administration, suppression and fearmongering are reaching levels more typical of a dictatorship than a democracy. Student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil, featured in the film, and Rumeysa Ozturk have been snatched by plainclothes Ice officers, disappeared from public view and threatened with deportation for criticizing Israel. This isn't dystopian fiction. This is the United States in 2025. And yet, films like The Encampments are being met with hostility. Before opening weekend, an angry patron vandalized the Angelika lobby and berated staff. Meanwhile, social media ads for the film are being censored. Behind it all is a pattern: politically motivated efforts to silence Palestinian voices. It's not just wrong, it's a threat to our most fundamental freedom: the right to free speech. When the Academy-shortlisted documentary From Ground Zero, which we also distribute, was released, it was widely praised for its humanist lens and deliberate avoidance of politics. Despite that and near perfect reviews, CUFI (Christians United for Israel) sent letters to Academy voters urging them not to support the film and pressured theaters to pull it. After a screening was scheduled in Gainesville, Florida, the venue received threats from donors to withdraw funding. It's extremely unfair for venue owners to be put in such a situation by politically driven pressure campaigns. We hope that despite attempts to intimidate them, theaters will not succumb to the pressure, and instead will make the right moral and business decision to show these films, for which there is clearly an appetite. The pressure doesn't end with threats or vandalism. Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar-winning No Other Land, was beaten by Israeli settlers and soldiers, seemingly in retaliation for filming what Israel wants hidden. According to Ballal, his name and the word 'Oscar' were shouted during the attack. And just last week, we were devastated to learn that the Gaza-based journalist Fatima Hassouna was killed in an Israeli airstrike the very same week a film featuring her as the main subject was accepted into the Cannes film festival. In Miami Beach, the city's mayor threatened to shut down O Cinema for screening No Other Land. When elected officials dictate what art can or cannot be shown, we're no longer dealing with discourse – we're dealing with censorship. And yet, the tides are slowly turning. Attempts to silence these films have failed. No Other Land won an Academy Award. The assault on Ballal prompted international outcry. The mayor of Miami Beach backed down. CUFI's letters were largely ignored. And films such as From Ground Zero, No Other Land and The Encampments are proving through box office performance that there is a strong demand. Still, there is a long road ahead. Arabs and Muslims remain deeply underrepresented in the film industry, both in front of and behind the camera. Zooming in further, Palestinians in specific are virtually invisible, with Mo Amer standing as a rare and singular exception. This is the crux: Palestinian films aren't dangerous because they incite violence. They're 'dangerous' because they offer a perspective contrary to the dominant narrative of the US government and Israel. The Encampments is not just a film – it's a test. Of courage, of integrity and of whether this country still believes in freedom of expression. Theaters that screen it are doing more than showing a documentary. They are standing up for the idea that cinema should remain a space for free speech and artistic expression. The question is: do all voices actually have an equal right to be heard – and if so, when will industry leaders stop being complicit in their silencing? The answer should have come long ago – but it's not too late. Hamza and Badie Ali are the co-founders of Watermelon Pictures, a Palestinian-owned film label dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices The Encampments will open in the UK in early 2025.
