As students of all ages bid adieu to the summer and recommence classes, Cinema Politica aims to highlight education as a political nexus. We’ve assembled a program of films that chronicle a plethora of educational struggles, from mobilizing campuses in solidarity with Palestine (THE PALESTINE EXCEPTION), to the continuation of Indigenous knowledges (UNDER THE HUSK), to a decommercialized university system (BLOKADA), and to the end of racially segregated schools (‘63 BOYCOTT). Each of these films are a crucial reminder of the political power students wield.
The Palestine Exception
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.
Under the Husk
UNDER THE HUSK follows two Mohawk girls on their journey to become Mohawk women. Friends since childhood, Kaienkwinehtha and Kasennakohe are members of the traditional community of Akwesasne on the U.S./Canada border. Together, they undertake a four-year rite of passage for adolescents, called Oheró:kon, or “under the husk.” The ceremony had been nearly extinct, a casualty of colonialism and intergenerational trauma; revived in the past decade by two traditional leaders, it has since flourished. Filmmaker Katsitsionni Fox has served as a mentor, or “auntie,” to many youth going through the passage rites. In UNDER THE HUSK, Fox shares two girls’ journey through adolescence, as they rise to the tasks of Oheró:kon, learning traditional practices such as basket making and survival skills as well as contemporary teachings about sexual health and drug and alcohol prevention. UNDER THE HUSK is a personal story of a traditional practice challenging young girls spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically, shaping the women they become.
Blokada
THE BLOCKADE portrays the largest, longest and most politically significant student protest in Croatia since 1971, which started in April 2009 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb. Offering a unique view from within, this film relates the story of a struggle against the commercialization of education, and the blockade of teaching classes that lasted for 34 days.
This rebellion spread onto more than 20 faculties across the country, and the students became an active and relevant political subject. Director Igor Bezinovíc followed everything: from the exhilarating preparation meetings and the blockade of classes, to the first signs of exhaustion and personal late-night discussions; from the initial support of most faculty members, to the moment they turned their back on the movement, and the attempt to reach Croatia’s missing Minister of Education.
’63 Boycott
Wagons,’ on playgrounds and parking lots of overcrowded black schools rather than let them enroll in nearby white schools.
Blending unseen 16mm footage of the march shot by Kartemquin founder Gordon Quinn with the participants’ reflections today, ’63 BOYCOTT connects the forgotten story of one of the largest northern civil rights demonstrations to contemporary issues around race, education, school closings, and youth activism.