Columbia protest documentary narrated by Mahmoud Khalil has U.S. premiere Thursday

A new documentary about the 2024 student protests at Columbia University, narrated by activist and recent graduate Mahmoud Khalil, has bumped up its release date by months in response to Khalil’s detainment and will have its U.S. premiere in Manhattan on Thursday.

The Angelika Film Center on Houston Street will host dozens of screenings of “The Encampments” over the film’s weeklong engagement, including several with post-screening Q&As or pre-film introductions by the directors and producers.

“The Encampments” had its world premiere on Tuesday in Copenhagen at CPH:DOX, an international documentary film festival.

“We had not planned on doing the North America release so soon, but given what happened, we felt that we had a duty to get this film out there,” producer Munir Atalla said, referring to Khalil’s detention by ICE agents earlier this month and the Trump administration’s attempt to deport him, which thrust Khalil and Columbia alike into the global spotlight.

The documentary, which was directed by Michael T. Workman and Kei Pritsker and executive produced by the rapper Macklemore, follows four pro-Palestinian student activists, including Khalil, through the encampment and monthslong protests on Columbia’s campus last spring.

Atalla, who was an adjunct assistant professor in the university’s film and media studies program at the time, said the team made the film to “dispel the hysteria around the encampment movement and portray it how it actually was.”

“It was so striking to me the difference between this incredibly peaceful, inclusive, accepting encampment space … contrasting that with the absolute hysteria coming from the university administration, the mayor, all the mainstream news networks,” Atalla said.

Columbia has not yet returned a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

In the spring of 2024, Columbia closed its campus to nonaffiliated people during the protest, which meant journalists were often relegated to the campus's surrounding streets. The documentary covers the tent encampment on Butler Lawn inside the campus, the media circus outside the campus, the student occupation of Hamilton Hall and the arrests that happened after the NYPD's subsequent arrival on campus.

The directors embedded with students throughout the protests, gaining access rarely granted to journalists. Atalla said the result is a portrait of the movement shaped collaboratively with the students themselves, many of whom appear masked or blurred to protect their identities.

“Student safety has been at the forefront of our thinking around this film,” Atalla said. “It’s a scary moment where it makes sense to be afraid. It’s perhaps even rational to be afraid.”

Khalil, the film’s narrator, had planned to travel to Copenhagen for its world premiere, Atalla said. He remains in detention in Louisiana, with his legal team pursuing his release.

“The Encampments” screens at the Angelika Film Center from Thursday, March 27 through Thursday, April 3. Tickets are around $21 and available here.