Some time from now — longer than it should be, but sooner than you think — people will look back at this period in history and think to themselves, “how did we let that happen?” And it will be thanks to films like The Encampments that we’ll be able to see exactly how these systems of oppression are designed to stop anyone who dared to try.
Throughout history, college students have shown us what fighting for true justice looks like. From the 1960 Greensboro sit-in of North Carolina, where Black students protested for civil rights and the end of segregation, to the 1985 UC Berkeley protests, that pushed for (and eventually won) UC divestment from apartheid South Africa, these student-lead movements were canaries in the coal-mine for the racists in charge, signaling not just to university leaders, but to the world: The time for allowing racism to thrive, and go unchecked, was about to run out. Not too long after their movements, the students’ warnings rang true, and the world would go on to recognize the injustice and cruelty of segregation and apartheid.
But, as proved by Watermelon Pictures’ searing documentary on last year’s student protests for Gaza, it’s clear these are lessons society has quickly forgotten.
Executive produced by Grammy Award-winning artist Macklemore, and directed by BreakThrough News journalist/producer, Kei Pritsker, and filmmaker Michael T. Workman, The Encampments gives audiences an inside look at what really happened on the campus of Columbia University, and several other colleges that shortly followed in their footsteps, as students began occupying campus lawns to protest the Biden administration’s response to the genocide in Gaza. Their goal? End their universities’ investments in weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon, and help stop the murder of thousands of civilians on the ground.
The war against the Palestinians of Gaza is not only being waged with 2,000 pound bombs and drone strikes, but in a twisting of words and truth. After destroying hospitals, universities, and mosques, defenders of these atrocities use accusations of antisemitism and terrorism as justification for the collective punishment of Gaza’s population, a whopping 47% of them children. These are the same accusations coming from Columbia leadership and government officials, describing the protests that occurred on Columbia’s grounds from April through June of 2024 as “lawless,” “radical,” and “disgusting cesspools of anti-semitic hate.” This is the narrative that The Encampments fights to disprove — taking up arms in a digital and social battle against misinformation and racism, shining a necessary light on a system that has failed not only those abroad, but those at home exercising their right to free speech.
It’s one of the few pieces of work in the entertainment industry that allows audiences fully into the mindset of what protesting for Palestine means, by showing aspects of student encampments that have been either completely ignored by traditional media, or twisted into a false narrative designed to sway public opinion against the organizers and their movement. While there has been historic recognition this year with No Other Land’s Oscar win, it’s critical that we analyze this movement from multiple lenses, which is what makes The Encampments so important. We’ve seen the news and the gore of what happens overseas, but we rarely get real, introspective takes of what the violence abroad does to us here at home. It’s not just the devastation of Gaza that is concerning, but the systematic attempts to vilify and reprimand the few of those willing to stand up and say “this is wrong, this must end.”
By following protest organizers Mahmoud Khalil, who made headlines last month as he was illegally detained for deportation without being charged for a crime, Sueda Polat, Grant Miner, and Naye Idriss, the documentary takes audiences alongside the students from the first day they pitched their tents, to the day Columbia University broke a 50-year long campus ban of NYPD (which had happened thanks to Columbia students in 1968 fighting against the Vietnam war, by the way), which lead to mass arrests and several cases of police brutality against the peaceful protestors. Through unfiltered access into the actual encampments, we are shown what organizers dealt with on a daily basis. From academic warnings of suspension, to the banning of tents and blankets while sleeping through New York City’s coldest nights, the students who chose to stay did so with great risk to their comforts and their careers, proving just how dedicated they were to their cause.
While there were moments I wished the documentary would probe a little further — in showcasing Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s Congressional hearing, where she was grilled on the phrase “from the river to the sea,” the documentary refused to explain that it is, in fact, not antisemitic, and merely a chant of hope that means one day, all people in Palestine will be free from violence, racism and war. Considering the heavy accusations on the encampments as antisemitic, this is a clarifying point that would have been welcomed — The Encampments is going to be seen as one of the most historically relevant and critically important films of our lifetime, and will be looked upon with reverence and awe — if not today, then surely when the post-genocide clarity punches us all in the gut, after we have lost too many innocent lives. In one of its most volatile and emotional moments, it explains the reasons behind the occupation and renaming of Hamilton Hall into Hind’s Hall — named after a 6-year-old girl who was shot and killed by the IDF — in a moment of haunting sadness, which stilled the entire theater. It’s moments like these throughout the film that show us the students who organized these protests were kind, empathetic human beings who couldn’t stand to see the violence plastered all over their feeds, and dared to do something about it. They didn’t simply occupy space in protest, they brought together people of all ages, races, and religions in community and song, celebrating passover with their Jewish comrades, and fought back against the notion that there was any hate or violence within their ranks.
They did, however, face violence at the hands of their critics. While the footage of the police brutality at Columbia and counter-protestors shooting fireworks into the UCLA encampments made rounds across the media in an effort to contribute to the accusation of lawlessness and chaos, The Encampments is critical viewing for anyone who wants a broader picture of the movement: a picture of what it looks like when students exercise their first-amendment rights, to advocate for a viewpoint the government disapproves of; a picture of what it looks like to fight for human rights and racial equity, in a movement that people deem “too complicated” to understand; a picture that makes it clear that criticism of a government’s war crimes and genocidal actions is not antisemitic. And most importantly, a picture that bravely lays out a warning for the masses: This is what fascism looks like.
As America grapples with the undermining of its democracy, legal residents and law-abiding citizens all across this country are being detained, imprisoned, and deported for simply speaking up against injustice. The students of Columbia, and thousands of students around the globe, have sung their canary songs again, warning another generation of what is to come. The Encampments does its best to spread this warning as far and wide as it can, in an effort to help more people heed their call. Will we end the racist, dehumanizing rhetoric that is killing thousands, or will we blindly fall in line as fascism imprisons more of our loved ones?
Grade: A
The Encampments is currently in limited theatrical release from Watermelon Pictures.
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