The Encampments Review
In April 2024, students at New York City’s Columbia University erected encampments on campus, aimed at protesting their institution’s financial entanglement with Israel, then six months into a war with Palestine now widely considered a genocide. Although the encampments were peaceful, and actually included a lot of Pro-Palestinian Jewish students, the ire of the University, and soon the Federal government, was swiftly bought down upon them. They became front page news both across the country and across the world, with the dramatic clashes with the police, and the intrusions of high-profile politicians, keeping the story in the headlines. The Encampments, a documentary by Michael T. Workman and Kei Pritsker, was filmed on the ground at the protests. It centres the voices of the students, who explain what the experience was like for them.
Most of all, The Encampments is excellent at illustrating the horrendous institutional overreach in quashing the non-violent student protests. Many accused the encampments of being hotbeds of antisemitism, but as one of the protestors puts it, there’s a dearth of examples – again and again, when pushed, the accusers can’t seem to find any. When there’s violence, it’s either at the hands of the police, or outside agitators, as is the case when one shockingly aims fireworks right into the encampments. All through the documentary, we see that the leaders of the protests are thoughtful, calm and clear eyed about the structural changes they want to see. Their fortitude in the face of such flagrant injustice is astounding.
If there’s one thing that is missing in The Encampments, it’s really the opportunity to get to know them on a more personal level. It’s understandable that when dealing with a genocide, Workman and Pritsker would want to keep their gaze macro, focusing on the overall impact the encampments both did and did not make, rather than the specific personalities involved. Nevertheless, when what they are doing is so brave and admirable, it seems a little bit of a shame that the directors hardly spend any time on them as individuals.
Indeed, they could not have known that so soon after the protests, Mahmoud Khalil – one of the featured organisers – would find himself the tragic face of the Trump Administration’s despotic efforts to silence dissenting student voices. It’s always a risk with documentaries about events that are so fresh in the news that things will quickly change or escalate, and overpower the on-the-ground reporting with new events and information. Khalil’s unwarranted arrest and subsequent incarceration (which led to him missing the birth of his first child) is relegated to the closing title cards here; considering the timeliness of the film, there was no way to avoid it. And actually, the decision to not go back and re-edit the documentary so that it would foreground Khalil more is perhaps an honourable thing, in keeping with the ethos of highlighting the overall movement over the people who led it.
Both inspiring and infuriating, The Encampments is an electric demonstration of remarkable bravery.
★★★★
