THE PALESTINE EXCEPTION
2024, dirs. Jan Haaken and Jennifer Ruth
USA; 70 min.
In English
After years of right-wing assaults on higher education, attacks took a new form in 2023 and 2024 that has been described as the new McCarthyism. As students across the country organize protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, decades-long taboos in academia around criticism of Israel–the “Palestine exception”–are shattered. This film features professors and students as they join calls for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that do business with Israel and face waves of crackdown from administrators, the media, the police and politicians. Scholars from diverse disciplines explain what is at stake in these protests and why so many young people identify with the Palestinian cause. The documentary unfolds as a story of college campuses as sites of both rebellion and repression, places where personal and collective histories converge in unexpected ways.
Following the film will be a Q&A.
Preceded by the short films:
SALT
2023, dir. Mateusz Miszczynski, 6 min.
Two boys float on the Dead Sea in a visual poem connected to the spirit of Palestine that considers how strength and perseverance are found amid conflict, drawing parallels with the everyday realities of life in Palestine.
SIRI MIRI
2021, dir. Luay Awwad, 6 min.
Out of boredom and sick of their mundane routine that’s leading them nowhere in life, two Palestinian teens ask Siri for help. Will it work?
THE DEER’S TOOTH
2024, dir. Saif Hammash, 16 min.
The film centers around a young man from a refugee camp who embarks on a perilous journey in order to fulfill his little brother’s wish: To throw his milk tooth into the sea.
