43° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
DOCUMENTARIES COMPETITION
THE ENCAMPMENTS - GLI ACCAMPAMENTI
by Kei Pritsker, Michael T. Workman
Country: USA
Year: 2024
Duration: 80'
The wave of student activism sparked by a solidarity encampment for Gaza at Columbia University in New York is portrayed through exclusive footage and intimate interviews, showing students who risked everything to demand justice. The film highlights their passion, resilience, and the challenges they faced, including university pressures, conflicts of interest, institutional repression, bans, raids, and arrests. Beginning in April 2024 with around fifty students, the occupation quickly grew into a national and international movement, involving universities across the United States and around the world, revealing the participants’ determination in the face of media, authorities, and institutions.
Biography
film director
Kei Pritsker
(Usa) is a journalist for BreakThrough News, a socialist activist, and an active member of the PSL, the Party for Socialism and Liberation. In 2025, he co-directed the documentary The Encampments with Michael T. Workman.
FILMOGRAFIA
The Encampments (coregia Michael T. Workman, doc, 2025).
Michael T. Workman
(Usa) is a filmmaker whose documentaries have screened at festivals around the world including CPH:DOX, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, IFFBoston, Sidewalk Film Festival and many more. Workman’s film Meantime (2022) won the Best Short Film Award at Telluride Mountainfilm, Best Short Documentary Award at BendFilm Festival and the Vimeo Staff Pick Award at Palm Springs ShortFest. His documentary From Parts Unknown (2018) won the Grand Jury Prize at the Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival.
FILMOGRAFIA
Militaria (cm, 2016), From Parts Unknown (cm, 2018), Favor & Grace (cm, 2021), Meantime (cm, 2022), The Encampments (coregia Kei Pritsker, doc, 2025).
Declaration
film director
“The Encampments is a testimony to the courage of young students, not only in imagining a better world but also in fighting to achieve it despite institutional violence and repression. The film challenges the dominant media narrative, revealing the true spirit of the encampments: what it felt like to be there, the emotions driving the students, and what motivated their drastic and necessary actions. The Encampments is an exploration of what drives a generation to rebel and fight for change.”
Cast
& Credits
REGIA: Kei Pritsker, Michael T. Workman. FOTOGRAFIA: Kei Pritsker. MONTAGGIO: Michal T. Workman, Mahdokht Mahmoudabadi. CAST: Sueda Polat, Mahmoud Khalil, Grant Miner, Naye Idriss, Bisan Owda, Ali Abunimah, Layan Fuleihan, Jamal Joseph. PRODUZIONE: Matthew Belen, Munir Atalla, Kei Pritsker, Michael T. Workman for Breackthrough News.
CONTATTO: Revolver www.revolverfilm.it
