Screening times:
Saturday, July 19, 6:00 PM
Sunday, July 20, 5:30 PM
Kei Pritsker and Michael T. Workman | United States | 2025 | 81m
The Encampments offers an urgent, intimate portrait of America’s recent student movement, ignited at Columbia University as young people protested their universities’ ties to the war on Gaza. Their actions sparked a nationwide uprising, with protests spreading across hundreds of campuses.
The Columbia encampment began in April 2024 when nearly 50 students pitched tents on university grounds. The documentary shows the dramatic escalation, from Columbia's administration banning student organizations for Palestine to the mass arrests that broke a 50-year police ban on campus. As students faced police raids, media attacks, and institutional repression, their movement spread to universities across the country and beyond, making history in real time. The documentary includes detained activist Mahmoud Khalil, alongside professors, student organizers, and a university whistleblower who shares exclusive insights into what was taking place within the halls of the ivory tower as students protested down below.
The Encampments capture the passion, resilience, and challenges faced by students who risked everything to demand justice, and examines why universities responded with mass arrests and force rather than engagement and dialogue, shedding light on the institutions' efforts to suppress student activism. In doing so, it offers a deeper understanding of both the power and the costs of grassroots movements.
It's produced by Grammy Award-winning artist Macklemore, who has been a vocal supporter of Palestinian rights, directed by Kei Pritsker, a journalist and producer at BreakThrough News, and award-winning filmmaker Michael T. Workman (Meantime).
"Journalist Kei Pritsker and filmmaker Michael T. Workman build a rousing documentary. The strength of the film is that it avoids getting caught up in polemics, instead focusing solely on the encampments and the people who led them." - Tara Judah, Sight & Sound
"'The Encampments' is not just critical in capturing the real-time makings of a movement, but in laying bare the consequences of this response." - Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter
"'The Encampments' proves essential as an exposé on wild distortion of messaging and the betrayal of institutions’ promoted values." - Josh Slater-Williams, Little White Lies
Tickets $12 ($11.40 at the door if available)
