Film Screening: Boycott
Nadi El Cinema (Film Series)
April 13, 2023
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Film Screening: Boycott
About the Film: Over the past six years, unbeknownst to most Americans, 34 states passed laws intending to silence boycott and other nonviolent measures aimed at pressuring Israel on its human rights record. These dangerous bills remove the legal protection that has been awarded to boycotts for generations, granting governments the power to condition jobs on political viewpoints. As this wave of anti-boycott legislation has swept through the country, so has a counter-wave in defense of freedom of speech. Everyday Americans are challenging these laws for their constitutionality in a nation-wide battle likely to go all the way to the Supreme Court. With full access to the plaintiffs and in revelatory moments with elected officials, Boycott chronicles one of the most consequential First Amendment battles of the past few decades and investigates the question – how did we get here?
About the Director: Julia Bacha is a Peabody and Guggenheim award-winning filmmaker and the Creative Director at Just Vision, an organization that fills a media gap on Israel-Palestine through independent storytelling and strategic audience engagement. Since graduating Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, she has strategically used documentary film to foster constructive conversations on some of the most divisive issues of our times. Julia started her filmmaking career in Cairo, where she wrote and edited Control Room (2004), for which she was nominated for the Writer’s Guild of America Award. Control Room became one of the highest-grossing political documentaries of all time and introduced Americans for the first time to the inner workings of the Arab satellite channel, Al Jazeera. Among her other films include Encounter Point (2006), which won the best documentary prize at the San Francisco Film Festival; Budrus (2009); My Neighbourhood (2012), which won the coveted Peabody Award; and Naila and the Uprising (2017) which was broadcast on PBS in 2019 as part of the series Women, War and Peace II, Executive Produced by Abigail Disney. Originally from Brazil, Julia is a documentary branch member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
For more on the Film: justvision.org/boycott
This event is part of Arab American Heritage month events. The Arab American Cultural Center is organizing a series of events to celebrate Arab American Heritage Month during April. The state of Illinois designated April as Arab American Heritage Month (AAHM) in 2018 and the Department of State recognized it nationally in 2021. During April, Arabs and Arab Americans are honored and celebrated for their historical contributions, culture, traditions, history, arts, and overall social presence as a community in the United States.
Date posted
Mar 28, 2023
Date updated
Mar 28, 2023