Rev Left Radio - The Encampments: Uprising Against the Death Machine

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Directors Michael T. Workman and Kei Pritsker join Breht to discuss The Encampments, their award-winning new documentary chronicling the 2024 student-led pro-Palestinian uprisings at Columbia, UCLA, and beyond. We talk about the ethical challenges of filming, the fascist state repression faced by people who speak out against Israel, the story of Mahmoud Khalil’s ICE detention and its relationship to the film, this film as revolutionary cultural production and political education, the universities dereliction of duty in keeping their students safe from violent zionist thugs, and the film’s role as a tool for organizers. With campuses - and society - under a reactionary crackdown and solidarity rising, this episode explores how cinema, student resistance, and revolutionary struggle converge in the fight for Palestinian liberation. Follow Justice 4 Mahmoud on IG  ------------------------------------------------------------- Support 3 families in Gaza HERE Support Rev Left and get access to bonus episodes: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Make a one-time donation to Rev Left at BuyMeACoffee.com/revleftradio Follow, Subscribe, & Learn more about Rev Left Radio HERE

Why do you think these encampments cause such an intense response from some of the most powerful people in the world? Thank you all for being here today. We have several members of Congress here. Throughout history, Columbia students have contributed to the great storybook of America's life and thought. The cherished traditions of this university are being overtaken right now by radical and extreme ideologies. Anti-Israeli campus are popping up in universities all across this country. We're here to discuss the little Gaza's who have written. who have risen up on campuses across America. These little Gazas are disgusting cesspools of anti-Semitic hate,

full of pro-Hamas, sympathizers, fanatics, and freaks. There was a very concerned effort on behalf of members of the media to portray things a certain way and refuse to discuss Gaza. They see something on TikTok and they're like, Israel bad and Hamasca. Can you believe they are chanting about the infatata in New York City? I really believe they are brainwashed. I mean, this is literally like a demonstration in Tehran.

This is terrorism. The war on terror has gotten to U.S. campuses. The universities are materially invested in the genocide of Gaza. Through their connections to companies that manufacture the weapons or that are operate illegally throughout occupied Palestine. We don't want our money to go towards Palestinian death. I'm Kay Pritzker. I'm one of the co-directors of the encampments, and I'm a journalist with Breakthrough News. I'm Michael Workman. I'm one of the co-directors of the encampments, and also

one of the editors and producers. Yes, well, it's an honor and a pleasure to have both of you on show today. I just recently watched the film in anticipation for this interview. Beautiful, gorgeous, profoundly moving. I love the way that it's constantly interacting with history, with what's going on in Gaza and with the encampments. It's a really sort of dialectical film in that way. Everything is in relation and in conversation with one another. It was a deeply just moving experience the entire time. You know, one of the things that really struck me is, for those of us that care, that have been paying attention, this is like a, this is a, this is just an ongoing, profound, traumatic heartbreak experience. And when you see, even footage you've

already seen, or you know, you relive the encampments or you see footage from Gaza, you just can't help but continue to break the heart wide open. And any film that can move somebody to tears is a film that I think is a good film. And this does it in service of liberation to the Palestinian people. So I really want to give you huge props up front. And as we were saying before we started this this episode, Michael, I've had you on a couple years back when you were doing some, you made a film and we talked about it, loved that discussion. And then to see you continue on and to be behind this film to be a co-director of this film, it's just a beautiful thing to see your evolution. So welcome back to the show and a huge, huge props to you. Thanks. It's really an honor

to be back here. And Rev. Left is such an important part of my political development. So thank you for all the work you do for years and years. It means a lot. absolutely and yeah and i said decay as well as i've been watching breakthrough news for a very long time and see your videos and share your videos quite often so it's a genuine honor to have you on as well great to be here thanks for having us all right well let's get into it and and you know just as an opening question what is the encampments about what drew you to focus on last year's wave of pro-palistine campus uprisings is sort of the subject of this film yeah so uh you can answer this multiple ways i think at face value you know this is a

a movie. This is a film about the lies told about the encampments and really the true raw inside picture of what happened at Columbia. You know, I was there. The way we even found this film was I went first as a reporter. I'd been reporting on the Columbia student protests for quite some time before the encampments even started. And I knew some of the organizers there. They just sent me a text message saying, hey, we're trying to up the ante with this divestment movement. They're not listening to us. We're sending us. We're sent up a encampment on the lawn of Columbia and you should be there. So I went there and initially I thought I would be making a report, you know, short report about a day or two of protest. But it was that night,

that first night you see in the film where there was a rumor that the NYPD was going to come and raid the camp. I decided to stay. I decided to sleep there overnight. And that raid ended up coming that next morning. So that was obviously the moment where, this became a way bigger story than anyone had anticipated. That's when I asked the students, I was like, hey, you know, can I stay with you guys? Can I live here? And they were totally fine with it. So I stayed there for the next 12 days.

I stayed there for 12 days in total. Filmed as much as I could and just lived with the students through the whole process and got to see firsthand how everything was happening there. And it was really remarkable because there was so much being said about the encampments, especially Colombia by politicians, by the media, by pundits, all types of people, but none of them had actually set foot there. And that was just the glaring hypocrisy. I would be sitting in the camp watching people say, oh, this, you know, Columbia is this den of anti-Semitism. If you're Jewish and you go there, you get spit on, you get yelled at. And I look 10 feet in front of me, there's a Passover

Seder happening. You know, it was just such, it was so, slanderous and in such a huge distortion what the media was doing. So we looked at all the footage I had and we said, you know, there is really a story here. This was one of the greatest sort of movements, protest movements for Palestine in a long time. And it's everything we're hearing about it is the total opposite of the truth. So that was really why we set out to make the film was we wanted to correct the record. Now, obviously with Mahmoud being a arrested on the basis of the lies told about the encampment, like, mind you, the whole reason the Trump administration targeted him was because they said, oh, he's violent, he's bigoted,

he's anti-Semitic. So the lies about the encampments are now being used to justify this way larger crackdown on students. So, you know, we felt like more than ever this film needs to be seen and people need to be able to make up their own minds about what happened there. Yeah, and I think like a big part of the. impetus of the film too was to just totally challenge that media narrative by showing the context, by contextualizing these protests, to not just be placed in the protests, but be going back to Palestine, to go to Gaza, to show exactly what the students were responding to that led them to take the actions that they did, because every time these students would go on the media,

that they would just drive home this narrative of anti-Semitism and refuse to talk about Palestine, refuse to talk about Gaza. And that's exactly what the students didn't want to do. So we wanted to set out to articulate the student experience, then the student perspective, which the media refused to do. Yeah, in so many ways, that is an act of counterpropaganda. Because as you start the film with this array of just the worst people on the planet Earth, talking about Tom Cotton, you know, just this.

the fascistic true face of the system is revealed in the way that they just condemn these people, the lies they spread about it, the slander, like you said, of the anti-Semitism accusation. It's just another blow to the credibility of not just the mainstream corporate media, but to the entire political and economic class, ruling class of the United States. And these young people, no matter how this plays out, no matter if they're short-term losses or long-term victories, this is just another unraveling. a revealing of the truth behind this entire system. And so the film does a great job at pointing that out as well and just makes you cringe

at the deepest level when you hear what these, you know, these honestly like, yeah, the straight up fascists like Tom Cotton and avowed fascist, really, you know, the way they speak about it is just grotesque. And then you swift over to the actual students and you actually listen to what they say and what's driving them and the multitude of different people with different backgrounds, Jewish and Palestinian alike working together. It's a beautiful thing. And, of course, I want to shift forward a little bit, skip some questions.

We'll come back on the outline. But to talk about Mahmoud Khalil, because this, obviously, this film follows him in large part, shows his background, shows his family's history, shows that he's speaking up for his people. You know, why he's doing it is because look at his entire family history. So it really humanized him, but it did so before the fact of his arrest, before he was a, you know, a name that everybody on the left was aware of and are mobilized. around to free. And so I want to talk about that because the film was kind of rushed out in large part due to this, you know, crackdown, abduction and attempted deportation of many of the students

involved, but especially the big first case, which was that of Khalil. So can you talk about his situation, its impact on the film's release and the current state of Mahmoud's case? Yeah, I mean, Mahmood, we had started, he was, you know, basically one of our top choices of being in this film from the beginning. Kay had spent a lot of time with him and his wife on the encampment while he was there. And he's just a clear leader, but also somebody who's incredibly humble and always focused on the political goals, also has this deep personal history, which I don't even think we didn't really fully understand until we sat down with him for like four hours to film that interview.

because he's such a humble person so focused on the political demands that he doesn't necessarily always go into his personal life and his personal experience. But, you know, he grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp outside of southern domestics in Syria. He's been through a whole lot to get to the point where he could get to Columbia University. A lot of that, unfortunately, couldn't include in the film. Just because the film isn't really about Mahmoud, he's one of the primary voices and narrators really of the film, but the film is really focused on the student movement as a whole. But I feel like we didn't expect what was happening, but we knew that if they were going to go for somebody, it would probably be Mahmood because he is the most kind of

visible person on the Columbia encampment. He was in the news, like in the film you saw, you know, there's interviews with him with like Wolf Blitzer and whatnot. So he would be somebody that they would target. But I think along with Columbia, you know, sicking the NYPD on their students, I think this is a historic mistake, strategic failure. Because Mahmoud has a crystal career record. He has a deep amount of respect. He's never said anything bad about a Jewish person in his life. Only solidarity, only love for those people. And I think that, you know, them trying to target him, is going to fail, although it's already creating a lot of harm in his life, obviously because his wife is pregnant and do this month.

And hopefully he'll be able to get out on bail before then so that he can see the birth of his son. So, I mean, it breaks our heart that he's not here with us. We premiered the film in Copenhagen a few weeks ago. and, you know, a week before that, I was talking to him on the phone, you know, about coming out to the screening. He was really excited about it. He's been a total champion of the film. So, you know, we've decided to release the film early, you know, through kind of strategic calls of the students, with just understanding where interest is at around this film and thinking that we can make the most impact. Not just for Mahmood's case, but for all the students who are targeting.

targeted, and also because there's so little media out there right now that really comprehensively challenges the narrative of what happened at the encampments, and so we thought it was like crucial intervention, although a risky intervention too, because it also, you know, heightens the risk for students who are involved in it. But we've also been, you know, working with Mahmoud's team to, you know, help release clips, to show and humanize him. There was a clip, you know, before we released the film,

maybe two weeks before of him talking about his family history in Palestine because his family was ethnically cleansed from Tiberias in Palestine in 1948 during the Nakhva, and were forced into, you know, a Palestinian refugee camp where his grandfather lived in a tent for the rest of his life. His dad was born in that tent, you know,

and lived in, in that tent up until only a few years ago, they moved to Germany. So it's a harrowing story, and there's so much more. I mean, Mahmoud is such an interesting and compelling and incredible person that we wish we could spend more time with them. I was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus in Syria. My family's history in Palestine actually goes back to as long as my grand parent could trace it. They live in a very small village right next to Tiberius.

Mostly they were farmers. My grandmother, she used to tell us that she had Jewish neighbors. They would share a piece of land where they would farm it. Tiberius was one of the first cities that the Zionists targeted in 1948 with ethnic cleansing. In April, 1948, a month before the Nakhra, the Zionist militias, they burned one of their villages. When they heard the news about it, they had to leave immediately. Some of the men went to fight. Big families, they had to go to Syria.

My grandmother, she was pregnant at that time. She had to walk 40 miles. She gave birth on the way. When they arrived in the refugee camp, they thought it's just a matter of days until they would go back. They did not want to be killed because they heard about the horror stories across Tiberias. My dad was born in a tent. His family lived in that tent until like mid-70s when they upgraded to small structures. In the 90s they finally kind of like had concrete buildings.

To us, it was always a temporary home until we go back to Palestine. That's why very few families actually invested in their houses. Not necessarily because they don't have the means, but because investing more in these houses means that they may forget Palestine. My parents, they've never been to Palestine. They live in Germany. They are trying to learn the language just to get the citizenship so they can go visit Palestine. visit Palestine. And it's kind of like heart-breaking because my dad, you know, barely can read Arabic to study German. And it's just, yeah, it's just horrific what's happening to him. And honestly, it's this grotesque injustice of, you know, his whole family line has suffered in these profound

ways. And then as he's a father, trying to get an education, you know, or soon-to-be father, married man, standing up for his own people, he is also attacked by the same apparatus that destroyed his family and his ancestors in that grotesque way. So, like, he really is, he continues, the Palestinian people, and specifically in the case of Mahmoud, he continues to be another generation facing an onslaught by this death machine, this apparatus. And then, yeah, his wife is now traumatized. And, you know, as a father myself, I know how important it is to be there at the birth of your children. And so to think that that might be robbed from him by this system is just another layer of complete injustice.

Let's talk about the university you focused on, it's mostly, which was Columbia, but you also, you know, weaved in UCLA. It's kind of this coast-to-coast thing that you did. And you really highlighted in one scene in particular all the different campuses, including little smaller ones like Boise State in Idaho, you know, some in Minnesota, et cetera. So why did you choose to center on Columbia and while also weaving in UCLA? And what do these campuses represent in the broader political movement? Yeah.

So, you know, one thing is our goal was not to sort of center Colombia or to say that what Columbia did is more important than any other school or anything like that. You know, some people have, well, so obviously the reason Colombia was the focus of our film, the reason it sort of lives at Columbia is because that was the, it was the first arrest of the students at Columbia that really set off the entire global encampment movement. So it was just kind of, you know, that there's always fates and chance and, you know, random things that happen in history. And it just so happens that Columbia was at the crossroads of that and ended up becoming the sort of epicenter of the encampment movement. But we, we,

We, you know, the practical reason it lives there is because that's where we had the most footage. That's where all of our footage was. If I had left, I was there. I was on the campus, obviously. If I had left the campus, I wouldn't have been able to get back in. So that's where we have the most high quality footage. But the reason we weaved in UCLA is because the significance of the story is not Columbia. The significance of the story is what the Columbia encampment inspired.

which was this global movement. I mean, it was literally within a matter of hours after the first students were arrested that encampments were just popping up around the country. Our choice of UCLA, again, practically is because we were in touch with someone who very generously gave us so much high-quality footage from UCLA. But another very important reason is, A, it was a narrative or it was a story arc that helped us show the breadth of the movement as a whole, it allowed us to talk about all the other encampments and how people on the outside were seeing what happened at Columbia and

felt inspired by it. So in that way, Colombia definitely did play a leading role in this undoubtedly. It was, you know, the focus of it all. But also one other thing we did want to highlight at UCLA was the brutality of the attack there, which almost went completely unmentioned in the media. It's so remarkable what happened at UCLA. And it's sort of a, it's a shorter point in the film, but it's actually something really important because everything you heard about the encampments was about how Jewish students were allegedly being attacked, assaulted, insulted, having slurs hurled at them. But that's exactly what happened to the pro-Palestine students at UCLA, a literal Zionist lynch mob of people who weren't even students, just people in

L.A. descended on that camp, ripped people out of the camp, beat them bloody, fired fireworks into the encampment, which could have easily killed someone. You have this, this lynch mob that's attempting to kill students on an American campus. And it's the students in the pro-Palestine movement that's being called violent or, you know, bigoted. And, you know, this, this attack largely went under the radar. So it was also to show the hypocrisy of the media coverage. But really, you know, the film is is not about Columbia. It's about how every single campus. It's, it's about how this movement spread. And it's about how these ideas spread so quickly. It's about how people, people change, you know, overnight. I think people in the encampment

movement, they did things that they would have never imagined doing. a week ago. You know, people's consciousness changed so quickly and the willingness to, to protest, to put your body on the line, to defy your university, to risk expulsion, you know, we referenced in the film, before the Colombian command started, there was a kind of a lull in the movement. You know, protests had sort of dwindled down. And it was the Colombian command that just sparked this massive shift. People all of a sudden, their bravery increased. Their willingness, their steadfastness, their unwavering commitment to the Palestinian movement sort of just completely, it was, it reignited the fire. It reignited the fire. So that's really what we wanted

to show with, with this film is how, you know, sometimes we forget how powerful we are. Sometimes we forget that we were capable, we did this, we were capable of this and we can do it again. It's just a matter of, you know, whether or not we're willing to, to remember our own power. Yeah, and I think it also highlights how real the threat is, how much the ruling class, you know, did everything it could to lie, to slander, to not cover the actual causes, to try to, yeah, foment this idea that there's some anti-Semitism. And one of the ladies in Congress, one of the Zionist apologists was talking about, like, you know, Zionist students shouldn't have to hear a protest, you know, that's an attack, that's an anti-Semitic attack on them. but when literal Zionists that aren't even part of the university come and beat your students bloody, nobody's held accountable, nobody goes to jail, there's no real investigations as far as I understand. And the universities themselves don't come to defend actual students being violently assaulted on camera in front of the whole world.

Like there's not even like this person said they got assaulted like we hear in the reverse direction. But here's like real proof that it's happening. And yeah, I mean, that is just a grotesque display of hypocrisy. and just a real dereliction of duty on behalf of these universities. Whatever you feel about the protest, the safety of your students should, and they say that they all sensibly do, come first. And yet here's a perfect example of that not being the case. But Michael?

Yeah, I think one of the lessons that we can take from the encampments, too, is that, you know, repression breeds resistance, you know, that in the moment that Columbia made this historic mistake when they arrested their own students and their own camps. campus, that created the entire student movement. And the moment that they arrested Mahmoud Khalil with no criminal charges and really abducted him to Louisiana, that fired up the movement again. You know, and that I think the historic lesson is that we have to meet repression with bravery and not cowardice to move forward to fight against it because any inch that we give up to them is gone. And we, if we don't fight, then there's no way that we can, we can, that we can actually win.

And so I think that we, we have to, I hope that people look at this film and really feel the bravery and are inspired by the bravery of the students to meet that historical moment, to meet repression with more of a fight back and not to, you know, not to retreat, not to, you know, live a life in fear, but to live a life fighting that repression. Because ultimately, like you said, Brett, it's like they did this because they were in a weak position. They knew they're losing the narrative around Palestine. And Columbia and these Ivy League institutions in particular are so, so critical to maintaining hegemony, to maintain the narratives around Zionism to uphold it. And if those students are moving away from it and not just moving away from it, from, you know, being Zionist, but putting their entire livelihoods on the line, risking their well-being in the states of, in the sense of, you know, UCLA students for Palestine, then that's

an existential threat to Zionism, to the Zionist project in general. Yeah. And the way that these elite universities are used as like sort of the ideological state apparatus, you know, of the, of hegemony. And I think that's a huge reason why the elite freaked out so much is that these are the breeding grounds of the next generation of the elite, as you point out in your film. And so that's why that repression had to happen. But as you just said, Michael, repression comes from weakness. If they were truly strong, they wouldn't have to repress. But when you crank up the dial anywhere in the world on repression, you crank it up on resistance. And so the more they try to put a lid on top of it, the more the lid bursts off. And that's a lesson for us in more

context than just this one. But I wanted to say that the film also highlights the cases of other students and at the end you mentioned grant minor who has faced serious or all of them have faced serious repression expulsion and legal consequences along with a growing number of now deportations right people being ripped off the street sent to detention centers for not for not committing any crime being here completely legally but for something as benign as co-authoring an op-ed criticizing israel and it's not even like the state's cracking down on criticism of the state as such it's cracking down on behalf of another state. Like if, you know, if they would have been out here protesting the U.S., it's wars or

whatever, I don't think the crackdown would have been as severe. So that's, that's an actual, like, profound and sort of, you know, disorienting fact about this. But can you share updates on maybe Grant situation, other people situations, and any other cases that you want to highlight? And then also how listeners can support them going forward. Yeah. So with Grant, I mean, so he has been expelled. and he was fired from his job, and he's still in high spirits.

I mean, the last time I talked to him, he hasn't officially been expelled yet. They have to, like, do the paperwork and all this, but they have been, they have told him that he will not be welcome back at the school. And with the other students, there were, so there were 22 students in total who were either expelled or suspended for protest, Columbia students. and Barnard students, and, you know, they are, they have varying cases. And, you know, we can't really comment on all the different cases of which there are new ones every single day. So many of them are like different circumstances and, you know, they all have varying

legal consequences and legal teams. So I don't, I don't know that we can sort of comment on too many of the cases. But one thing we'll say is like, as Michael said, this crack down is is a clear indication of what they've had to resort to. It's a clear indication of the fact that they're losing the narrative. And now their philosophy is just maybe if we scare the crap out of them, maybe if we just convince them that it's illegal to protest, maybe they'll stop protesting. And, you know, like you said, Brett, I don't, I don't know that there's any other country you can get deported for criticizing in the U.S. I don't know that there's another one. And if someone can think of one, I would love to hear it. But it really is a new low. And it really is like a full mask off moment for the United States to just basically say, yeah, like, we're just going to make it illegal effectively to criticize this country.

It shows you how important Israel is to the USS hegemony in the region. It shows you how desperate they are to maintain this imperial outpost in the region. it also shows how fragile this the decades of propaganda that Israel has, you know, spread and disseminated in the United States is, it really shows you how fragile so many of the imperialistic lies that were told in schools, you know, on TV are, you know, one thing that I think of is that the first casualty in any, in any situation, any war and any genocide is the truth. it's the truth and you know the first thing they have to do before they go to any war or start any genocide is lie to you because they could have never said oh you know we we want we want to go over to iraq and and destroy all the infrastructure and just clear the way for

us energy companies and you know reconstruction companies and we're going to send your kids your kids are going to go over there and fight people they've never met they have no beef with at all they're going to kill them they're going to come back and body back so we can get this money if they said that you know the Iraq war would have never happened. So instead they said this whole thing about weapons and mass destruction and terrorism and this and the other. And now it's the same, it's the same exact thing with the Palestinians. It's the same exact thing. Oh, you know, that Palestinians are terrorists. If Israel doesn't stop them, they're somehow going to come to America as if that's

something that they want to do is like come to America. All these ridiculous things, Hamas equals ISIS, like just pure, you know, ridiculous propaganda. And the fact that all of that unraveled because a bunch of students camped out on the lawn of their university, because people are just sharing TikToks, because people are just on Instagram, like, in their living room, talking about what they learned on YouTube. It, you know, you really, it really kind of impresses upon you. This isn't sustainable. This lie that Israel is this pluralistic democracy isn't sustainable. People are waking up at a faster rate than I've ever seen in my life. And, you know, both Michael and I have been involved in this movement for years and years and years, I've never

seen anything like this before. And, you know, this really is a situation. They're really not going to put the genie back in the bottle. So I would say that in the timeline of things, we're actually kind of, this is where we are in the timeline. We're kind of near the end. We're at the point where they really have no argument to make anymore besides, hey, we're just going to throw you in jail and we're going to see if that makes you stop. And it's not. It's just not. Yeah, I mean, absolutely well said. And in the film, I think it was Mahmood, who talks about that this is the beginning phases of the end of not only i think the israeli occupation their legitimacy around the world um all the narratives that prop them up ideologically but also the end of the

u.s empire these two these two apparatuses are deeply intertwined and they're going down together and what that looks like in the in the beginning stages of the end is just a complete unraveling of their narratives of their entire ideological control over those narratives and that's exactly what we're seeing and it's young people who are leading the cause or the charge it's young people who are tapped in on TikTok who are learning about these things. And so it's this next generation coming up where I think real movement's going to be seen. And I think the hyper desperation of both the U.S. Empire and the Israeli far right, they're trying to accelerate their processes because they know that the time is ticking. And even though they get up on a stage and they act

confident, they know in the background that they have a limited time to finish this genocide or in the case of Trump to lock in minoritarian oligarchical rule before, you know, people have had enough and the whole thing crumbles eventually. So I think that's really, that's really pertinent to this conversation. And even though it looks like

losses and it looks like repression is successful, it is the lashing out of a weak and dying system. And we have to keep pushing forward doing everything we can. And I think this film contributes mightily to precisely that. Now, you

spoken about this film as being a tool for organizers. And I'm just wondering, you know, even when I shared this on Instagram, I was like, organizations should absolutely be like doing screenings of this, showing it, you know, lifting the political consciousness of everybody in your org. How do you envision this film functioning, not just as documentation, but as part of the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation and student solidarity, specifically in regards to organizing? Yeah, I mean, I think one of our main political goals starting out from this was one, obviously, as we said, to correct the narrative, to create a counter-narrative, but two, I think also to re-energize the movement, because we saw the student movement as this

big re-energizing of the movement for Palestine as a whole. And after that, there was a bit of a lull, and we wanted to create something that for people already initiated, for people already involved with the Palestinian movement to be re-inspired, to look at something to remember the feelings and to be able to see things in context to know that we're winning and that we need to keep pushing forward. We can't stop. So I think that's one of the ways that can work for organizers is also just a way to re-energize people. And then two, I think that we also wanted to focus on like a target audience of both people in the movement but also people in the periphery of the movement people who may be sympathetic but are being lied to by the media

who are watching too much MSNBC who are watching too much CNN and could be moved over but need a counter-narrative need some sort of tool a film that can show them what actually happened, but also at the same time, educate them on what happened in Palestine, educate them on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, on the experience of Palestinian people, and so that we can bring them into the movement. So I think we hope that people take this film and invite family members and friends who are like within that political spectrum to come see it and then have patient conversations with them afterwards. And hopefully that can grow. their consciousness, and we can start building a bigger and more mass movement for Palestine.

So we see that as kind of like the ways that people can use this. Right now, the film is exclusively in theaters. We had like a really good theatrical run this last weekend at the Angelica. And now the film will be going out to a wider national audience. And I think one thing people can do is to come out to screenings right now because the more people that the more tickets that we sell, basically, the more other feeders will pick it up. And so they'll see it as, you know,

something that is profitable to them, which allows us to get Palestinian stories out into the mainstream, which I do, like, reflecting on this, and Kay and I have talked a lot about this, it is pretty incredible to see a film that has the politics that it does. and is about Palestine do well

like theatrically to be you know that there is an audience for this you know and that these the powers that be like they they know there's an audience they know there's an audience for like no other land they know there's an audience

for Brett Story's film union without the JFKA unionizing the Amazon facility but they refuse to get these stories out, even though they're profitable, even though there's an audience for them. And I think hopefully we can start shattering that a bit, that they, there's so many people that want to see these films, that want to see Northern Ireland, that want to see this film,

that we can start getting Palestinian stories out there. So I think that's essential for people to support all of these types of films, to request them from their theaters and whatnot to try to get this out as wide as possible. And then we, we, once the theatrical run is done with the film, then we want to make sure that it gets out to organizations, that people can book their own screenings of it, that organizations can get involved and use it strategically as a tool to energize their base, but also to bring new people into the movement

and to have that be something that, you know, really gets out there widely. So I think those are kind of the main ways that we see that this being a tool for organizing but also for building the movement and also just breaking through the censorship of Palestinian stories, you know. We couldn't have done this two years ago. I mean, it is incredible to reflect on the shift of consciousness, you know, from two years ago. Like, it just is, it's a seismic shift and I think people need to always keep that in perspective to know that things are changing really quickly, even when they feel really dark. Yeah. Yeah. It's a,

It's a successful film and one that can continue to be successful, not only because of all the content and the beautiful footage and the emotional, provocative, moving nature of the film, but because it's a constantly gripping film. Like, you sit down and you are locked in, and there's no lulls in the story. It is a really gripping film in that way. And so I know if there's just opportunities for it to be shown to the public, that people will absolutely learn a lot from the film and just love it as a film. And we have some indie progressive little theaters here in Omaha that I'm going to make sure I reach out to after this conversation and urge them to look into screening this film. And I encourage people all around the country and wherever you are to reach out to your local theaters, especially art theaters, you know, more progressive indie film places and just see if they're interested and probe them and just get it on their radar. Because that in of itself, getting it shown in more places is a victory in and of itself. Absolutely.

I could just add one thing on the last question, too, like, you know, I think to sort of build off what Michael was saying, one of the big things we really were thinking about was that audience that doesn't agree with us on everything, you know, and that might believe some of the misconceptions about the students. And, like, if anything, I would say that might be one of the primary audiences we really wanted to reach with this. Because, you know, I think a lot of times in the movement, we, you know, we end up talking to a lot of people. people we already agree with. But the challenge of building a movement is not just uniting people who are on the same page. It's also bringing in people, winning over people who are confused, who are propagandized, of which there are many and many, many people in this country. Obviously, the media is a 24-7 multi-billion dollar apparatus that's just feeding people with nonstop lies about Palestine, non-stop lies about the students. So really, you know, this film,

film, you know, it really was designed to break through some of those common misconceptions. And, you know, I think a lot of people that know about Palestine are in the movement might watch and say like, oh, I already know all these things. But really, it is designed to reach people who have been lied to. And, you know, that's what makes the task of building a mass movement or a revolution difficult is you have to unite people that don't currently agree. You know, if it was just about talking and echo chamber you know we would have done it by now but i think uh you know i think i think i mean all trends show that people on you know republicans democrats conservatives every support for israel going down so i think that is is taking shape yeah no absolutely absolutely true and just by getting it out to more people you're going to sweep in those people that are on the fence that are curious maybe even hostile i'm going to go watch this film because this is bullshit you know what are they going to say and then be like okay maybe maybe it's a little harder to maintain this cognitive dissonance.

So you're absolutely right. And I think this works in that way incredibly well as well. But one of the things about the film that really touched me and really drove the film home and gave it a really important dimension was the interview, and I forget her name, unfortunately, but the Palestinian in Gaza were who you interviewed literally sitting in the sands outside of a refugee camp who had been, you know, displaced from her home for over a year. And she is talking about the gratitude that she, you know, that she feels. is watching these student encampments. And you can't watch that scene without, you know, tearing up

yourself, especially when she, when she breaks down crime. But how did you pull off that interview? What were the logistics involved there? And can you tell Ms. a little bit about who she is? Yeah. So Bissan is a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. And she's been reporting on the genocide since it started. And she's been doing a segment called, Hello, I'm Still Alive. And, where she basically just reports every day that she continues to live. And she's one of several Palestinian journalists who, us, you know, in America around the world, have we have sort of been carried through, we have seen the genocide through the eyes of so many of these Palestinian journalists, not just Bisan.

And I think it is, she has been one of the most, the stalwart. just one of the most outspoken voices and one of the people that I think a lot of us have grown sort of a personal connection to. I mean, she's really someone we've grown attached to. And, you know, of course, so many of us are concerned that she'll be killed by Israel because of her platform this year, this conflict, this, this conflict. The genocide has been the most deadly conflict for journalists. I think in the last like seven decades. It is over 200, journalists have been murdered by Israel in Gaza because they don't want the truth to get out. And especially now in the age of social media, these people are following these journalists,

you know, on Instagram, on Twitter, on TikTok, and they pose an existential threat to Israel because they are actually putting out images and information that Israel has tried so desperately to suppress by cutting off the Wi-Fi, by cutting off the electricity, but they still manage to get the stories out. in just an incredible way. We were connected to Bissan through Watermelon Pictures, who's our distributor, who this film would not be possible without.

They were in touch with her, and they said she would be more than happy to be in the film. You know, it would be a great, it would be the perfect voice, really. It would be the perfect voice because Bison has amassed a following among so many young people

in the United States, among students. I mean, many of the students, I'm sure, were watching her reports in the encampment. So I think she really was the perfect person to bring these two parts of the world together. Yeah. Yeah. And I think her experience of seeing the student encampment movement is representative of a lot of people's experience in Gaza, seeing it, which is like seeing that these students in the most propagandized, one of the most propagandized countries like against Palestine are putting everything on the line for them and not just putting things on the line but also speaking with knowledge like historical knowledge and cultural knowledge about Palestine that it's clear that they're being educated and I think when

we first saw that footage that that was recorded of Bissan that they sent to us you know like we're all like bawling you know because it's just so profound to see that you know because it can be in the movement it can feel like you know like we can't win sometimes that that what we're doing isn't actually affecting change in these lulls and these in these in these eb periods you know um like hearing that hearing that emotional impact that it's had for people there and especially somebody with so much respect and prestige as like Bisan, it was just deeply, deeply moving, you know. And I think is a reminder that we all need to keep and hold that, you know, we do have an impact and we need to keep fighting. We need to keep

fighting. And if we do, we can win. And that like these, these, even if we feel like we're defeated, like there are these victories within these defeats too. So we were deeply, deeply honored to have her in the film. She's an incredible journalist. Yeah, I loved her immediately. I wept watching her weep, and the prospect of her getting hurt is just completely existentially unacceptable, but to know that so many journalists, just like her, have been hurt and killed and murdered and martyred by this death machine is just, it is horrendous.

We wish her nothing but the absolute best, and I think it really was a beautiful and perfect part of the film, and really a testament to her break. Because she knows what Israel does, she knows that putting her face out here makes her even more of a target than she already was, and she's still willing to do it for her people. What I witnessed until bin May gave me chills. It brought me the most joy. I didn't miss a single video of the students who talk about Palestine, educate others on the Palestinian cause, with true political and historical knowledge. It is one of the most important things that made people open their eyes.

Those videos brought us to tears. We looked at those videos and thought, thank God, people finally recognize it. Our death has a price. Not that any price is worth this. There's no presence worth this death, this extermination, whatever it may be, except the price of freedom. The price we paid for the world's awakening, the students awakening, the awakening of families and consumers able to boycott their products,

the awakening of people, children, teenagers. 50,000 martyrs is a very heavy price. The complete destruction of an entire country that will take decades to reach build, the price was our forced displacement from our lands. I have not seen my home for over a year now. The price we paid made us slightly feel that we are not alone.

again, the Palestinians continue to represent the absolute best humanity has to offer. Now, I know that, Kay, you have to leave here in a little bit, but I did just want to point out that the film broke records at the Angelica, I think film festival and premiered internationally at Copenhagen.

And it's just blowing people away. It's winning awards. Are you at all, can you talk a little bit about that? And are you at all surprised at the amazing reception that it's gotten, the fact that it's already, you know, winning awards and is internationally renowned? I mean, I think when we set out, we did not expect this at all.

You know, I think we, you know, we were trying to make a film really quickly to respond to the dire necessity of the time. So when we started editing last June, you know, we were just trying to see what we could possibly make out of this. We knew that we had really, really compelling footage, but we didn't know if we had, like, a full film yet. And so I think that's only become clear in the past few months as we've, like, finished the film and had some. on, you know, test screenings and whatnot. But I don't think, we had no idea that it would be so celebrated so quickly. I think we just couldn't know in the sense of the, you know, the film world is so deeply hostile on the whole to Palestinian stories that it is deeply

surprising to us and we're like really, really grateful to the Angelica for, for being basically the vanguard of this and running us theatrically for a weekend in New York City. It's a rare thing. This isn't a normal relief strategy for a documentary. Usually you play at a lot of film festivals for about a year. Then hopefully you get picked up by a distribution company. And then maybe six months later, you start having a little theatrical release. And hopefully, you know, the Holy Grail would be to be on like one of the big streaming platforms, right? But rarely now do documentaries have like a real theatrical run and big theatrical support. But I think, you know, we have the movement behind us. We have organizations behind us

who can show up, who can bring people in. And I think that shows the strength of what we can, we can force these narratives out into the world through our organization. But we need to be organized. We need to have a backing of the movement. And then ultimately these films can be seen by people who are in the movement too, but with the support of it. So we really, really did not expect this to happen. And obviously, I think a lot of it has to do with luck and in some ways, but also being able to release it at a time when people are hungry for a counter-narrative. And strategically meeting that moment rather than sticking

to the normal path of release for a documentary film to be able to, you know, strategically meet the moment from, yeah, that we need to. So I think, yeah, we didn't really know that it would be this

big, but I think we all responded so deeply to the footage when we first saw it. Like, there's a scene in the film where, one of our primary protagonists with, she grabs the mic from this person as all of these students are being arrested on the first arrest. And she just grabs the mic and just decides to, starts yelling that everybody take the second lawn.

So they end up occupying a second lawn at the same time as NYPD is raiding this other lawn. And that becomes occupied by just community members, mostly people who are, necessarily organized with the organization at Columbia. And I remember just watching that for the first time and just being moved to tears, just being like, this is an incredible moment to capture, the incredible bravery of it. And it's so deeply inspiring that I think there is something here. And we just hope that we can build a strong enough film around it that people would

respond to it. So it's been deeply, deeply moving to see that people are, really, really responding to this film. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. You know, obviously, like, the timing was obviously a big part of its success. I mean, we just happened to be sitting on this film that was already finished. That had that exposed all the lies that literally, you know, countered every single thing the Trump administration was trying to say about Mahmoud.

That was, you know, just a purely coincidental thing and that's the way it worked out. But, you know, I think speaking to the timeliness, too, something I do want to say is I think it was timely in a more fundamental regard as well in that I think the film really captures, gets to the heart of what is really happening here. I think, you know, the film ostensibly is about Palestine. And you could say this is a film about Palestine, but I would go a step deeper and say, this film is fundamentally, it's about the capitalist system in the society we live in itself. Like, I think there's something that's been happening in the last few years. Among young people, especially among people like these students, people are starting to realize

that the society and the system we live in is raped. They're starting to realize that the people, you know, the working class, the people who do all the work, the people who put society together and make it run, get no say in society whatsoever. And Palestine was like the highest expression of that. Palestine showed us that in this so-called democracy, you can't even stop a genocide. You don't even, you don't even have enough say in the political system to tell your politicians to stop a genocide. And this film and what the students did, I think is such a, such a, it shows so effectively and it showed so, you know, picturesquely, if that's even a word, just how

irresponsible this system is to the most basic asks, desires, demands of the people. I mean, we started the film off of the question. What was it about a bunch of students camping out on a college campus on a lawn that made the most powerful people in the country freak out, turn every campus in America into a police state? What was it about that that was so threatening and the answer is it's it's it's it's showing it they are so this system is so fundamentally unresponsive to people it is so beholden to the interests of of capital of

corporations of the military industrial complex i mean really that's what this film is about too is that our system our whole political system is for sale like our whole political system is for sale to the Israel lobby to the military industrial complex to big pharma to big tech all these companies that you know the students were trying to divest from they're the same people that were in that billionaire group chat with eric adams saying arrest the students do more crush the protests that's why every campus in america is turned into a police state it's because our government is run and owned and paid for by corporations the same ones these students were trying to fight and it just so happens also that the same corporations that are killing palestick means are the

ones who are saying that we should have no speech rights, no protest rights whatsoever. The thing is, we actually have the same enemy as the Palestinians, and that's also what this film is about. That's what ties us together. It's not some romantic,

oh, you know, us and, no, literally the students in the Palestinians are fighting. We're all fighting the same enemy. Beautifully, beautifully said, I could not agree with every syllable more. Akai, do you have to, do you have to start heading out?

for your next interview? I probably should, but I trust that Michael can do the rest. All right. So now that the Kay had to leave us to go do another interview, we still have Michael with us. And I have just another question or two before we wrap up here. I think a really important part of this film and your other film that we had you on to discuss before, which I think this is a skill of yours and a talent of yours, is that it's not just about making intellectual, cultural products in this case films you know there's a tendency perhaps on our side of the political spectrum to really to analyze to deconstruct to intellectually probe and criticize but what makes good art and what makes good cultural products is mixing that with

things that are emotionally resonant one of the things i try to do on on rev left and i always try to do it is kind of a natural part of my personality when i'm organizing or just speaking with family, friends, whatever. He's like, if I really care about something, I'm trying to make you care about it, not just at the level of the head, but at the level of the heart. I want to open people's hearts up and move them.

I want people to feel feelings because emotions is what get us moving and going. You know, there's something dry about merely intellectual understanding. There has to be passion associated with it, especially if we want to get people to get up and go organize and to fight back and to throw in for.

this movement. So what are the importance, especially for you as a filmmaker and in the construction of this film, of adding, as you so expertly did, that emotional dimension and how do you think about the role that that dimension plays in filmmaking more broadly? I mean, I think it's so, so critical that we know, we learn how to become good storytellers on the left, that we are able to connect deeply to people's emotions, but also to the human experience to things that are relatable, even though, you know, we may come from different, you know, experiences. I think to me that's fundamentally what, you know, solidarity is about, too, is like understanding people's differences, but also seeing what our commonalities are. And I think

that when we're making art, especially story-based art, you know, appealing to people's emotions is absolutely critical. Because like you said, Brett, the emotional aspect of this is what moves people. Like, if we think of ourselves as organizers, we need to be agitators, right? Agitation comes before education. So we need to be able to appeal to people's emotions, but also tell these fundamentally relatable stories. And I think for this film, you know, it's not just about having like all the right information or all the right arguments. It's really about, you know, getting people to emotionally understand why the students did with. what they did. And also to emotionally feel the stakes, to understand that the stakes are children

being massed in mass in Gaza, you know, six-year-old girls. Like this is, this is so, so deeply harmful to humanity, you know, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, like all of this stuff, you know, we wanted to continually go back to in the film to ground people in the emotional reality of it. Because I think that's what moves people to action. And we could have made a protest film that's just at Columbia, that's just showing the protests as they are. But I think that does a disservice to what the protest is, because it's not even the experience of the students. You know, they're at these protests. They're pulling up their phones.

They're seeing pictures of dying children, of dying innocent people. And they're being moved to tears and frustration all the while as they're, then taking all of that emotional experience and turning it into action. And so I think that it's just as important, if not more important, to appeal to people's emotions. And then once they're at that emotional level, then give them information, then to educate them, you know, that we can't just start with, like, I have all the right arguments. Let me tell you, like, what you should think. And here is exactly why. like I think we need to appeal to people on a deeply human level and open them up to those arguments at that point, you know, that agitation becomes before education.

And all of these things can happen as once. So we kind of see the film as like kind of a roller coaster ride of that where it's like appealing to your emotion, showing you what actually happened, giving you more facts and understanding about the situation in Palestine, and just continue. continuing that kind of cycle throughout to keep people really emotionally engaged. And I think as organizers, too, we need to develop real emotional intelligence. Yes. We need to be able to really relate to people, to empathize with them, to understand them on a deep level, and to reflect on our own experiences, our own struggles, our own trials and tribulations in order to relate to them.

Because we can't build a mass movement unless we can really deeply relate to the working class as a whole and to people as a whole. And so I think it's like a really, really critical skill for people because it's easy to, you know, get all the arguments and do the education and scold people. But it's much more challenging to really bring people in and appeal to their emotions and then slowly and patiently work on building them up and challenging their worldviews in a way that's effective, not just the way that like feels good, you know, because we need to get past that in order to build in order to build a movement. So I think film is one of the ways that we can do that.

You know, music is an amazing way to appeal to people's emotions too. There's so many art forms that are so critical and good at doing that, you know, I think for those of us who have those skills, you know, we should, you know, try to use them in service of liberation, use them in service of the movement for all people to, to, to, to, you know, rid ourselves the chains of capitalism and colonialism and oppression as a whole. So I think it's like, I hope that everybody thinks about, you know, all the things that they can do, all the skills they have, and how they can apply those in service to the movement. Yeah, absolutely.

I always say that, you know, Palestine is on the front lines of global revolution and global resistance because I think people have to understand that colonialism, imperialism and fascism are the three heads of capitalism. Colonialism is its birthing ground, its primitive accumulation of land, of labor, of extraction. Imperialism is the way it grows and maintains itself. It is capitalism on the global stage. And fascism is its defense mechanism. And what the Palestinians are up against is they're not explicitly saying, at least not all factions, or saying that we're fighting for a socialist future, but they're on the front lines against the three heads. Colonialism in the face of settler colonialism out of Israel, imperialism in the

face of the U.S., and fascism, which is the mechanism by which those two forces dominate, brutalize, and terrorize the Palestinian people. So understanding those things is all part of a singular process, and anywhere where colonialism is being confronted, anywhere fascism or imperialism are being confronted, so too is capitalism on the global scale, because those are it's lifebloods. Those are its pillars. So it's always worth noting that. But also, I love the point you said about emotional intelligence and consciously trying to cultivate that within ourselves, anybody that's been on the left for a while, you've bumped into both gorgeous human beings, right, with high levels of emotional intelligence. And you've bumped into people

who are egoic, dogmatic, myopic. They don't know how to talk to other people. They're always causing drama and conflict. And so it's not so much about condemning those people because it's just a form of immaturity, but it's about recognizing that in ourselves and trying to build a revolutionary subjectivity that includes not only high degrees of emotional intelligence, which is not something you're just born with. It's something you cultivate through interaction and through consciously trying to cultivate that in your daily interactions.

But it's also about breaking down the barriers between us and others. and watching, you know, Basan's interview, when you weep, when you're watching that, that's because in that moment, your separation is I'm an American over here, I speak this language, this is my community, those people over there, they're of a different religion, they speak a different link, those barriers come crashing down and you're just human. When you see children being pulled out of rubble and you can't fucking stand it, that's because you realize that those boundaries have completely obliterated at a visceral level and you feel just the human tragedy of it, the deep human condition, which is universal,

which we all share in. So much of American life has been and continues to be about building barriers, seeing yourself as fundamentally, I'm not them. Those people over there, they're somebody, even just the word terrorist, when you can write off the entire resistance of the Palestinian people as terrorism, you have effectively built an emotional, psychological, existential, and spiritual wall between you and that person and capitalism loves that. Capitalism absolutely loves that.

It's breaking down those barriers, having a revolutionary subjectivity where you seek to dismantle those barriers between self and other. And we have a universal politic because we want total liberation for all human beings. And the other part of American life

that I wanted to highlight is it's about looking away. It's about focusing on me and mine and getting this new thing and now I'm scrolling for this thing and I'm going to go buy this thing. And what am I going to do next? And even as your government with your tax dollars is engaged in an actual genocide of a population where 50% is under the age of 18, a genocide of children. And so much of about American life is just looking away from that.

And even the people, the politicians, the media figures, the elites who are condemning these protests and stuff, you can see even in themselves that they've constructed this walls and they're looking away. They refuse to look at the reality of the situation. They can't do it. And that can come out in different forms for different people, either complete apathy and ignorance or this slandering, this, you know, these people are this lazy accusation of anti-Semitism. All of it is a concerted effort that to look away and in the process to dehumanize themselves. And the very last point I want to make is we all know how the right uses race and identity to divide people. We know how the billionaire class, you know, wants us fighting amongst each other, they're right, they're left, they're black, they're white, they're white, they're

they're trans, they're not, and like that's the keep us fighting each other. The Democrats over the past 15 or so years have inverted that process by by emphasizing the differences of identity without ever asserting anything that could unite people across identity. And that's exactly what class politics do. And that's exactly what pro-Palestinian anti-colonial anti-imperialist movements do is say, we're all different. We have different experiences. We might speak different languages, have different gods we pray to or no gods at all. But because we are human beings, because we have shared class interests, because we all just want to raise our families and freedom and safety and security, that's going to bring us together across different identities. And that is a fundamental threat to not only the Democrat and the Republican Party, but to this entire capitalist imperialist structure.

Absolutely. I think we agree. I could have said it better myself. Beautiful. Beautiful. But yeah, let's go ahead and move towards the end of this conversation. Again, I really want to emphasize people do. what you can to get this film screamed in your local city. And then eventually when it comes out, we'll use it as organizational material. It's crucial for that. But for listeners that have been moved by the film or just tuning into this movement or might be interested in following

up, what's your message to them about getting involved in the struggle for Palestine and supporting these student activists who are continuing to face immense and in some cases unprecedented levels of repression by the state? Yeah. I mean, I think, think the important thing is for people to join organization to get organized so that we can meet all of these moments before they happen. So we're ready to go when Mahmoud, you know, is abducted. I think that was a critical moment. There was many, many organizations that were ready to be mobilized on the streets within 36 hours after his abduction. And there were thousands of people in the streets of New York City. Within two days, there were thousands and thousands of people

across the United States who were protesting and support at other college campuses and also getting prepared for what would happen next because we knew that this would not be

the only case that this was just the beginning of this level of student repression. And so we need to be organized. We need to be ready to meet these moments and be in place with unity to be able to, you know, meet the moment, every moment.

And I think if you're not organized, you haven't found an organization, to try to reach out to one, to take that step to do that. I know that a large portion of the listeners of Rev Left are organized and in organizations doing great work, but I think that that's really the critical piece to this, because we can't do it alone. And I think, you know, our political education, our understanding of all these things is only as valuable as we use it in actual movement, you know.

And then I think that people need to. be out in the streets. People need to be organized to, you know, fight back against this ashes repression against these students, that we can't give them an inch. We have to be out there. So, you know, we've already talked to people who have watched the film who haven't been involved in any sort of protests that are like, yeah, I saw the film. I went to the protests in New York City the day after for Land Day. And, you know, that's the kind of thing that we want. And I think that, you know, we need to get organized. We need to start educating each other. it seems so basic and obvious, but just taking that movement to see what are your local organizations that are doing this type of work, that you respect, that you politically align with, that you think you can contribute to, and make the jump to work in that space.

And then I think also it's crucial that we work together, you know, that we work across these, you know, political spectrums to to fight for Palestinian liberation, that we don't do a circular fight. firing squad thing in this moment, that we, you know, work together as a group to fight back against this, you know, fascist repression against, you know, the Trump administration. But also, you know, that we needed to do that and we have been doing that, you know, in the past years under, you know, the Biden administration, which was a genocidal, horrible regime, too. So, you know, I think we need to get organized, have diversity of tactics, get out into the streets, make sure that they can't do this without us showing up. And we need to keep, keep pressuring them.

We need to keep not just pressuring politicians, but really we need to be building the movement. You know, that should be the goal, building this mass movement so that we have that power, you know. And it has astronomically grown in the past two years. Like, this is an incredible moment. it and we need to keep pushing forward. We need to keep pushing and ultimately we can win.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, I always talk about the American doom loop where, you know, Trump's coming in. He's going to fuck shit up so badly. He's going to turn a bunch of people off. He's going to, you know, lose support over the next four years, whatever happens. And he's going to be so terrible that the Democrats are just going to be able to come back in with Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris and say, hey, at least we're not them. you would like a break from from this chaos right we'll we'll do and and that's the doom loop and then they'll get in and they'll do nothing to solve actual problems and then some other fascist freak

will come on the stage with a new set of scapegoats that's the doom loop and the only thing to break out of that doom loop is exactly what michael said an organized mass movement from coast to coast weaving these these issues together Palestine is not separate from the fight against capitalism is not separate from the fight against fascism mobilizing more people educating more people and putting real pressure on this system. And this system is historically weak. It's not going to take like the most organized movement of all time to confront this system.

This system is already waning. It's already not working for most people. We need to reach those people. We need to mobilize those people. And, you know, there's no reason to despair. This is a scary time, but it's scary precisely because the systems that we oppose are failing. And they lash out when they fail. And so that is ultimately, as we've been saying throughout this,

conversation, a sign of weakness, not strength. And the other thing I want to emphasize is we can't stop fighting for these activists who are facing this repression. I often think like, you know, I'm a father. What if I was put in that situation? And then people, you know, rallied for a couple weeks and then just kind of forgot about me and moved on with the media cycle, how lonely that would feel, how isolating that would feel. But if after months and months, you know, people are still coming out and fighting, not just for me, but for other people that are facing this situation because they care about me, that brings people together. That forms real community. And we're going to need to have each other's backs on all levels if we're going to fight this system and be prepared for what's coming.

Because, yeah, they're picking the people that are here on student visas, you know, that weren't born in America, might not have airtight citizenship. They're picking them first. And then who are they going to come after after that? Your citizenship isn't protection. They'll find new legal loopholes to come after anybody's speaking out. And if we don't have each other's back, that's how movements get destroyed so don't stop fighting don't give up don't stop talking about not only Palestine but here in the u.s the political prisoners that are paying the price for what we all believe right you and i are talking as as free people out here in our in our homes because we're not in jail right now they went to jail for having the exact same beliefs that you and i have and so we have

to see our connections and we have to keep fighting and then the very final point and this just echoes what you're saying is, yeah, the Democrats suck ass. But when you have Trump come to the forefront, what happens is a lot of people who are able to maintain illusions during a Democratic administration were able to keep their head in the sand, they can no longer maintain that cognitive dissidents, and they start looking for alternatives. They start seeing the system failing. And I notice at Rev. Left, we get an influx of new listeners, right? Looking for alternatives. And your film comes out at the quintessentially perfect time where people are seeing this rising fascism, seeing this repression, and are looking for deeper understandings, or looking for alternative

worldviews. And here's this film, right? Here's this podcast. Here's this musical artist that you might like. And that gets people moving in the right direction. And then always, we just have a crop of young people coming into political consciousness 24-7. Every day somebody turns 18. Every day, somebody turns 17 and opens up their first radical book every day somebody stumbles across a radical podcast or a radical film or a radical artist and they start thinking in new ways so all day long 24-7 we're getting an influx just from pure youth of people blossoming into political consciousness that we have a responsibility to educate and to organize because without without those two things we are we're screwed but we have those two things and we can build on them so that's just so crucial for

people to to keep in mind and if you're not if you're not organized find ways to get organized the organization doesn't have to be perfect it just has to be doing good work and you get in there and you try to make it better um you don't if you're going to sit around and wait for the absolutely perfect organization that fits every single ideal you've ever had and everybody in it is perfect with the way they speak and community you're never going to find it get involved and make things better and make yourself better in the process and it's just so crucial so crucial but yeah i'll toss it back over to you for any final words anything you want to say about the film any other plugs or promotions you like to make as we wrap up yeah i mean i just so deeply agree with that bret and i also

feel like for those who are feeling scared right now know that our our only protection is with each other and the bigger movement we build the stronger movement we built the more protection we have and you know that's what's protecting my mood right now is that we have a big movement in support of him there's a lot of people and we need to know that we need to continue to grow that so that we can all feel safe as we continue to fight for a better world and for a better system. And so, you know, I just hope that people are inspired by the phone that they go out to see it and that, you know, that they're moved enough to get out there and continue to fight, you know, not just in support of the students, but definitely in this moment

in support of the students as they face repression. But also for Palestine and also, you know, to end this horrible system of capitalism and colonialism and that we can win and we should keep fighting. And so I hope that, you know, that the braver of these students is like contagious for people. And I think it really is. It's a line from the film. But I think it's a really, really prescient line. Yeah. I felt the contagion for sure. I was inspired. I was moved. Yeah, I was, I was uplifted at the same time by the film. The film has some heavy content. of course. But at the end of the day, there's just a deep well of inspiration and seeing the bravery not only of the students, but even more so, the Palestinian people. And they're facing

odds that none of us over here can even imagine facing. And they're doing it with dignity and with honor and with grace and with generosity and love in their heart. And so if the Palestinians can do it, we have no excuse. And that's what I always say. If they're doing it against those odds if the people of Yemen are doing it against those odds, what excuse do we have to say, oh, we're screwed, we can't do anything, you know, we're all fucked anyway. That's unacceptable. That's unacceptable. So yes, thank you so much. The film is the encampments. Again, throughout this conversation, we've talked about ways you can try to expand the viewership of it. And then eventually, when it comes out, after screenings, maybe we can get it into the hands of

organizations. They can do screenings themselves and just spread the word. This is a really great film, not just because of the content, but as a piece of filmmaking and of documentary filmmaking in particular, it is absolutely top tier. So amazing work to both Kay and to you, Michael, and to everybody that worked together to make this film happen. Thank you so much. And also, people should follow Justice for Mahmoud on Instagram. That's a page set up by his family and lawyers. That's where you're going to get a lot of the updates on his case and where you can see all of the opportunities to mobilize in support of him, but also other students. So please follow that account.

It really means a lot to support him. I'm going to go follow it right now, and I'm going to link to it in the show notes so people can go get those numbers up. Stay tapped into what's happening and continue to show our unrelenting support. Again, Michael, proud of you, man. It's really cool to see you continue to grow and evolve and to put something out so monumental and to have been in contact with you for years and to see your progress and to see this achievement

it's fucking awesome, dude. Keep up the great work. It means a lot coming from you. Thanks, Brett. This is the beginning of the end to the occupation. The phase may be very long, but it's definitely the start of the decline. The word has waking up.

When the occupation ends, That's the first thing I would do, definitely going back to Palestine. I have this dream of mine of jumping off the wall of Aka into the sea. Then continue building a state for everyone, a state that embraces all its citizens, a state that values human lives. One day, inshallah. You're going to be.