The Encampments

Synopsis

In April 2024, a small group of Columbia University students pitched tents on the campus lawn, demanding their school cut ties with weapons companies supplying Israel’s assault on Gaza. Within days, their Gaza Solidarity Encampment sparked the largest wave of student protest in a generation — reviving the spirit of the campus uprisings of 1968, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, and other moments when young people forced institutions to reckon with their complicity in injustice.

The Encampments is the definitive inside account of this uprising. Directed by Kei Pritsker and Michael T. Workman and executive produced by Grammy Award–winner Macklemore, the film embeds with the students themselves, documenting their voices, debates, and negotiations; the joy of shared meals and music; the resilience of solidarity across race and religion; and the repression they endured in police raids and expulsions — repression that would later intensify with the ICE detention of Palestinian student leader Mahmoud Khalil, one of the film’s central voices.

At its core, the film centers the courage and testimony of Palestinian students and their allies, whose calls for justice anchor the movement. Within that coalition, it also amplifies Jewish students and faculty who stood at the heart of the encampments, invoking the lessons of “never again” as a call to solidarity, not silence. Their presence complicates dominant media narratives that erased or maligned these voices, underscoring that the struggle for Palestinian liberation has long been intertwined with Jewish ethical traditions of justice and memory.

More than a chronicle of protest, The Encampments exposes a clash between conscience and power. Students called on their schools to divest from the machinery of war. Universities responded with police, surveillance, punishment, and silence. As encampments spread from New York to California to campuses worldwide, the movement revealed both the promise of grassroots action and the depth of institutional resistance.

Honored with a Human Rights Jury Special Mention at CPH:DOX, The Encampments is both a moral document and a classroom resource. It challenges students to grapple with urgent questions of democracy, dissent, complicity, and solidarity at a time when the stakes could not be higher. Suitable for courses in media studies, political science, Middle East studies, peace and conflict studies, history, sociology, religious studies, American studies, and human rights.

Trailers

Watch the trailer

Filmmaker Credits

Directed by

Kei Pritsker, Michael T. Workman

Produced by

Matthew Belen, Munir Atalla, Kei Pritsker, Michael T. Workman

Executive Produced by

Macklemore, Hamza Ali, Badie Ali, Ben Becker

Associate Produced by

Alana Hadid

Director of Photography

Kei Pritsker

Edited by

Michael T. Workman, Mahdokht Mahmoudabadi

Featuring (in order of appearance)

Sueda Polat, Mahmoud Khalil, Grant Miner, Naye Idriss, Bisan Owda, Ali Abunimah, Layan Fuleihan, Jamal Joseph

Distributed by Watermelon Pictures

A Breakthrough News Production

Gaza Field Producer

Ruwaida Amer

Gaza Camera Operator

Mahmoud Almashhrawi

Bisan Interview Camera Operator

Dahman Eid

Post Sound Studio

Nocturnal Sound

Re-Recording Mixer

Eli Cohn

Sound Editor

Jack Sasner

Sound Recordist

John Prysner

Archival Producers

Gaia Caramazza, Jaylen Strong

Production Assistants

Jaylen Strong, Ted Griswold

Motion Graphics

Kagan Marks, Rachel Hu, Brenton Brookings

Additional Cinematography

Michael T. Workman, Craig Birchfield, Gaia Caramazza, Kira Boden-Gologorsky, Talia Jane, Bret Hamilton

Drone Operator

Matthew Belen

Additional Editing

Matthew Belen, Kei Pritsker

Arabic Translation

Saga Translations LLC

Hebrew Translation

Avital Raff, B’Tselem

Film Festivals

CPH:DOX
Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival

Resources: Downloads and Related Links

Downloads:

The Encampments Transcript_V8

Praise

“The Encampments blew me away. One of the best docs I've seen in years. … As someone who has followed this historic student-led movement closely, this film completely transported me inside of it, right to the heart, a truly unprecedented look—made all the more heart-wrenching by seeing Mahmoud Khalil advocating for peace and justice for the Palestinian people knowing that one year later he will be unjustly kidnapped by ICE as a legal green card holder and transported to a detention center in Louisiana. It's despicable and shameful. If you can find a way to see The Encampments —DO IT! It's a MUST-SEE.”

—Michael Moore, Filmmaker

“Indelible … Mahmoud Khalil is the bridge through which the film makes its arguments about the hypocrisy of élite liberal education, which feeds on ideals of free inquiry and free speech and abdicates its responsibility in freeing people.”

—The New Yorker

“Stirring and tense … 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 … young, educated people [who] do not want to pay for the killing of Palestinians. The administration, however, is compromised: how can they agree to divest from companies whose representatives serve on the university board?”

—Sight & Sound

“Gripping … The Encampments is part of a cadre of recent films that are conveying the stakes of this defining conflict. Whereas No Other Land and From Ground Zero capture the real-time impact of Israel’s unchecked encroachment on the West Bank and violence in Gaza, The Encampments reveals how the issue is playing out stateside. That the use of a militarized police force on protesters has become so commonplace in the last decade should concern all Americans, especially as the Trump administration continues to act in ways that violate protected rights. The Encampments is not just critical in capturing the real-time makings of a movement, but in laying bare the consequences of this response.”

—The Hollywood Reporter

“The Encampments does a masterful job of showing the full story of the Columbia encampment and the activism that preceded it. … Over and over again, we witness how community power has the force to reveal administrative hypocrisy and challenge institutional power. … The film leaves viewers empowered—a welcome feeling as we witness the horrific and endless butchering of civilians and destruction of homes in Gaza.”

—Mondoweiss

“An urgent protest film that carries the same conviction and resolve of the students who organized these demonstrations … The editing is fast and nimble, yet slows down enough when needed to let particularly moving scenes play out in their time with no rush. The seamless cutting from the students’ testimony and back to the encampments allows the story to be organically told. … As a snapshot of a particular few weeks in which a protest movement was born and spread, it’s an effective and prescient documentary.”

—Variety

“The Encampments is necessary and urgent … [The filmmakers] offer a rare window into the encampments and the student movement at large. They do so not merely to chronicle some of the brave, principled motivations of the student movement, but as a considered rejoinder to the hysterical mischaracterizations of the encampments as ridden with ‘radical,’ ‘extremist’ and ‘antisemitic’ elements.”

—Middle East Eye

“Immersive … Takes viewers onto the Columbia campus and into the hearts and motivations of the student crusaders who put their academic futures in jeopardy by taking a stand. The film also raises questions about where the priorities and finances of Columbia—and other educational institutions like it—really lie. One of the most important elements of the movie is its debunking of the public narrative about the actions and motivations of the protesters. … Far from divisive, it’s an inspiration to behold.”

—KQED, San Francisco, CA

“A fine documentary … taut and disciplined … but one that never loses its focus [as] the directors get their camera in among the rough and tumble … The Encampments may win over few hostile to the college occupations, but it offers an important record of how the campaign developed.”

—The Irish Times

“Offers undeniable food for thought … The co-directors chart the progress of the protests—from initial elation to eventual police raids—in forensic detail, utilizing ‘as-it-happens’ footage from students’ phones as well as more thoughtful post facto interviews and reflections.”

—The Times of London

“An unvarnished look at the pro-Palestinian student protests after October 7, and the value of fighting for what’s right.”

—Loud and Clear Reviews

“Engrossing … Presenting a far more clarifying and empathetic document of the peaceful protesters’ activities and rationale than was ever permitted during the media firestorm that ensued, The Encampments proves essential as an exposé on wild distortion of messaging and the betrayal of institutions’ promoted values.”

—Little White Lies, UK

“Rousing and reflective … What makes The Encampments artistically triumphant is its sense of contemporary and historical detail, owed to both footage shot by the filmmakers as well as by the protesters themselves … The subjects’ multifaceted backgrounds—from Arab organizers to Jewish students to community Rabbis—helps weave a multicultural fabric, which becomes, at first, a subtle de facto retort to claims of the protests’ inherent antisemitism, and after a while, a very explicit one. … Not only is The Encampments keenly observational about the kind of detail and planning that goes into such movements, it also makes for an intimate aesthetic embodiment of what participating in a protest feels like, in all its hues.”

—IndieWire