Wednesday, July 2, 2025 | 5:30
Community Forge
1256 Franklin Av., Wilkinsburg, PA

As war erupts around the Palestinian Nation, those in solidarity are invited to a Pittsburgh screening of “The Encampments.” This documentary captures a critical moment in the history of struggle, when students at Columbia University set up the first encampment and set off a wave of student resistance. After the first encampment was established on April 17th 2024, students in the United States and Europe followed suit and began to openly protest the roles of Western universities in providing money and ideological cover for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Students posed demands that still stand, asking their universities to disclose all investments in weapons and technology companies profiting from the genocide, and then to divest from them.

The film is built around extensive interviews with Sueda Polat, a central organizer at Columbia University, and her comrade, Mahmoud Khalil, later detained by the Trump administration in an attempt to unlawfully deport a dissenting voice.

In light of the ongoing and widespread resistance to masked and IOF-trained ICE goons across America, the interconnectedness of all liberation struggles is becoming clearer and clearer. “The Encampments” provides an essential opportunity to revisit our strategies and determine what works best. What to do when empire strikes back? Watch this film and talk about it with your comrades.