Thirty-three American state legislatures have passed laws punishing boycotts of Israel since 2015. The bills came in response to growing support for a Palestinian-led movement to oppose Israel's occupation through boycott, divestment, and sanctions, known as BDS. Boycott is a documentary that details the dangers of such legislation that was passed with virtually no public scrutiny (streaming at the Hot Docs Festival until May 7, 2022). Join us for a conversation with film director, Julia Bacha

About Julia Bacha

Julia Bacha is a Peabody award-winning filmmaker and the Creative Director at Just Vision. She started her filmmaking career in Cairo, where she wrote and edited  Control Room  (Sundance 2004), for which she was nominated to the Writer’s Guild of America Award. Subsequently, she directed Encounter

Point  (Tribeca 2006),  Budrus  (Berlinale 2009),  My Neighbourhood  (Tribeca 2012), and Naila and the Uprising (IDFA 2017). Julia’s films have been broadcast on PBS, HBO, CBC in Canada, among others.

In addition to over thirty film festival awards, Julia is the recipient of the 2011 Ridenhour Film Prize, the 2012 Doc Society Creative Impact Award, a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 2017 Columbia University Medal of Excellence, and the 2019

Chicken & Egg Award. Originally from Brazil, Julia is a  Documentary Branch Member of AMPAS  and has given two TED talks, “Pay attention to nonviolence” and “How women wage conflict without violence.”

About Boycott

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 33 states in America.

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.