Join World BEYOND War for our 6th annual virtual film festival throughout the month of March!
This year’s festival theme examines the increasing repression of nonviolent protest, criminalization of dissent, and the curtailing of freedom of speech worldwide. This year’s film festival creates space for this timely discussion of what’s at stake for those who stand up for peace and justice, and how we can rise up in solidarity to grow our movements in the face of repression.
Scroll down to learn more about each film and our special guests!
How It Works:
- 1 ticket gets you access to all 3 films and 3 Zoom discussions.
- You will get the screening links to watch the films on your own time leading up to the Zoom discussions.
- Join us live on Zoom on March 14, March 21, and March 28 to talk with key representatives from the films and special guests! The panel discussions will also be recorded if you can't join us live.
Day 1 Discussion of Boycott
Saturday, March 14 at 3:00pm-4:00pm Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4)
Boycott (2021)
When a news publisher in Arkansas, an attorney in Arizona, and a speech therapist in Texas are told they must choose between their jobs and their political beliefs, they launch legal battles that expose an attack on freedom of speech across 37 states in the U.S.
Boycott traces the impact of state legislation designed to penalize individuals and companies that choose to boycott Israel due to its human rights record. A legal thriller with “accidental plaintiffs” at the center of the story, Boycott is a bracing look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation and an inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.
In the March 14 panel discussion, we will hear from two of the protagonists featured in the film. Additionally, we’ll be joined by panelists from around the world to speak about anti-BDS policies and repression of Palestinian rights activism worldwide.
Panelists:
Bahia Amawi
Protagonist Featured in the Film
Bahia Amawi is Muslim Palestinian American who has been an active member of her Austin community for over 25 years. She is involved in youth education, Islamic education outreach, helped co-found EMBRACE Austin, is a homeschool mom and contracts as a speech language pathologist with a local School District. In 2018, Bahia was fired from her job as the only Arabic bilingual, elementary school speech language pathologist when she refused to sign the anti-BDS law that asked her to take an oath of solidarity to Israel. Bahia sued the state of Texas with the help of CAIR and won, resulting in changing the law and returning back to work. Since then, a documentary, called Boycott, has been produced by Just Vision featuring her story along with two other plaintiffs, bringing to light the origin of the Anti-BDS law. Bahia has been placed in the forefront of activism appearing on Al-Jazeera, Democracy Now, speaking at universities, and conferences. Most recently, Bahia has helped co-found a curriculum service team called Texas Coalition for Human Rights which focuses on addressing the bias in public schools on the topic of Israel/Palestine.
Becca Steckle
Research + Policy Analyst, Just Peace Advocates
Becca Steckle (she/they): Steckle holds a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School and is a registered nurse (RN, non-practicing). As a Research + Policy Analyst at Just Peace Advocates, Steckle helps to analyze and expose institutional complicity, particularly Canadian institutional complicity in occupied Palestine and Kashmir. As a member of the Canadian BDS Coalition & International BDS Allies, they support the coordination and amplification of boycott campaigns and actions across so-called Canada. Steckle also coordinated the update to Just Peace Advocates 2025 Legal and Tactical Guide as well as creating the "Encountering the Police: Know Your Rights" guide. They are deeply committed to local organizing efforts and believes in Disability Justice as a daily praxis.
Alan Leveritt
Protagonist Featured in the Film
Alan Leveritt is the publisher of a local newspaper, the Arkansas Times. Alan, who comes from a conservative, libertarian family, is distraught by the role of fundamentalist right-wing organizations in the rapid spread of anti-boycott bills across the country. He is committed to bringing his case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Aarti Narsee
Senior Policy & Advocacy Officer, European Civic Forum
Aarti Narsee is a decolonial feminist from South Africa based in Brussels. She works as a senior policy and advocacy officer at the European Civic Forum to monitor, advocate and analyse civic space and policy related developments across Europe. Through her feminist approach, she provides insights on an intersectional approach to civic space. The ECF is a pan-European network of nearly 100 associations and NGOs across 29 European countries, which works to protect civic space, enable civic participation and build civil dialogue for more equality, solidarity and democracy in Europe.
Rachel Small (moderator)
WBW Canada Organizer
Rachel Small is the Canada Organizer for World BEYOND War. A community organizer, she has organized within local and international social/environmental justice movements for over a decade, with a special focus on working in solidarity with communities harmed by Canadian extractive industry projects in Latin America. She has also worked on campaigns and mobilizations around climate justice, decolonization, anti-racism, disability justice, and food sovereignty. She is a longtime member of the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network and has a Masters in Environmental Studies from York University. She has a background in art-based activism and has facilitated projects in community mural-making, independent publishing and media, spoken word, guerilla theatre, and communal cooking with people of all ages across Canada. She lives with her partner and kids in the woods about halfway between Toronto and Ottawa on Anishinaabe, Huron-Wendat, and Mississauga land, covered by Treaty 20. She can often be found at a protest or direct action, gardening, spray painting, and playing softball.
Day 2 Discussion of Silenced: The War on Journalism
Saturday, March 21 at 3:00pm-4:00pm Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4)
Silenced: The War on Journalism (2025)
In a world where truth-telling can often mean life or death, this new Al Jazeera documentary shines a light on journalists who paid the ultimate price for their work. From war zones to political cover-ups, their courageous reporting exposed critical truths, but also made them targets.
As attacks on journalists rise globally, the film exposes how press freedom is under siege in both autocratic regimes and democratic societies. It challenges viewers to consider the value of truth in an age of misinformation and growing, often orchestrated, hostility towards the media.
By exploring the stories of those who gave their lives in pursuit of the truth, this film offers a sobering reminder of the risks journalists take to inform the world. At its core, it is a call to defend press freedom and to remember the individuals who believed that the role of journalism is the protection of the ruled over the ruler.
Panelists:
Jeff Cohen
Media Critic & Founder of FAIR.org
Media critic Jeff Cohen was founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, where he was an associate professor of journalism. He founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986, and cofounded the online activist group RootsAction.org in 2011. Cohen has coproduced documentary movies, including "The Corporate Coup D'Etat" and "All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I.F. Stone." He is the author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media. He has been a TV commentator at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and was senior producer of MSNBC's Phil Donahue primetime show until it was terminated three weeks before the Iraq invasion. His columns have been published online at such websites as Salon.com, HuffPost, CommonDreams and Truthout--and in dozens of dailies, including USA Today, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Atlanta Constitution, and Miami Herald.
Alejandro Meléndez
Journalist, Mexico
Alejandro Meléndez studied Communication Sciences at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and photography at the Center for Martí Studies in Havana, Cuba. He is a photographer, deputy director of the website Periodistas Unidos (United Journalists), and a member of the FotorreporterosMx collective. He has worked for the newspapers El Financiero, La Jornada, the sports daily Record, and Excelsior. He has also worked for the news agencies AFP, Xinhua, Notimex, Clasos, and Procesofoto, and has contributed to the magazines La Mosca and Rolling Stone. He has published two books: Culturas Juveniles (Youth Cultures), published by the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, and Luminiescencias (Luminescences), published by the Literal project.
Dr Wesam Amer
Dr Wesam Amer is a CARA (the Council for At-Risk Academics) fellow and visiting professor at the University of Cambridge. Between 2020 and 2025, Dr Amer was Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Languages at Gaza University. He was a Fulbright scholar and researcher at Harvard University in 2022. He was a Marie Curie fellow at Newcastle University from 2017 to 2020. Dr. Amer obtained his Ph.D. from Hamburg University in 2015. His interests in teaching and research center around political communication, violent language, warfare, and contemporary geopolitics in the Middle East.
David Swanson (moderator)
WBW Co-Founder and Executive Director
David Swanson is Co-Founder, Executive Director, and a Board Member of World BEYOND War. He is based in Virginia in the United States. David is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk World Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.
Day 3 Discussion of Solidarity Crime
Saturday, March 28 at 3:00pm-4:00pm Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4)
Solidarity Crime (2019)
Solidarity Crime: The Borders of Democracy denounces the systematic policies of human rights violations against migrants and all those who have stood in solidarity with them.
The documentary presents their stories through interviews with migrants (at the borders of Europe, in 14 cities and 5 countries), and with those who have been sanctioned and continue to face prosecution for facilitating – without any material benefit – the entry, transit, or stay of irregular migrants.
Migrants have been criminalized for years; for more than a decade now, even people who show solidarity and help them have been considered “solidarity criminals”. In this documentary, we will learn about the history of the different actors of solidarity and address the key questions behind this reality: why is the only limited mobility in globalization human mobility? What alternatives can we imagine in the face of the nationalist drift?
Building on the themes of the film, the March 28 panel discussion will delve into how war and militarism drive people from their homes, causing mass displacement. And how the very same weapons companies profiting from war and conflict cash in when governments militarize borders and block the movement of people fleeing violence.
Panelists:
Juan Pablo Aris Escarcena
Co-Founder, Mandorla Films
Juan Pablo Aris Escarcena is an visual anthropologist and researcher (University of Seville). He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology, a Master Degree in Social research and a Bachelor Degree in History. He specialized in the application of scientific research methods for the design of contents and the production of audiovisual material. He is also a member of the “Laboratorio de Sociologia Visuale” of the University of Genoa. For the past six years, his research has focused on the use and interconnections of culture, arts and political expression. He has developed audiovisual products exploring how to convey complex messages in a simple way. In his latest research project (Migrascapes), he has explored the role of identities and sense of belonging in european politics through visual sociology. He has conducted ethnographic research on three continents and in more than ten countries, such as France, Italy, Spain, Greece, United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Morocco, Senegal, and Burkina Faso.
Samuel Kobina Gyasi
Samuel Kobina Gyasi is a Collective Intelligence facilitator and a staff at the School of Collective Intelligence at UM6P, Morocco. He is an alumnus of UM6P with a master’s degree in Collective Intelligence and has a background as a full stack web developer. With over 15 years of leadership experience, he spends his free time mentoring and teaching on leadership, productivity and technical competency. He volunteered with CEI Morocco between 2022 to 2023 to help immigrants' welfare.
Josephine Solanki
Transnational Institute
Josephine Solanki works at the Transnational Institute, focusing on EU militarisation and borders. She is active in the international Abolish Frontex network.
Guy Feugap (moderator)
Africa Organizer, World BEYOND War
Guy Feugap is Africa Organizer for World BEYOND War. He is a secondary school teacher, writer, and peace activist, based in Cameroon. He has long worked to educate youths for peace and non-violence. His work has put young girls in particular at the heart of crisis resolution and awareness raising on several issues in their communities. He joined WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) in 2014 and founded the Cameroon Chapter of World BEYOND War in 2020.