‘October 8’ And ‘The Encampments’ Explore The Aftermath On College Campuses After October 7th, Here’s How They Differ In What Both Films Cover

While the war in Gaza brutally rages on, people on U.S. college campuses have been protesting both sides with two documentaries, October 8 and The Encampments, which showcase the different views following the aftermath of October 7th.

October 8, which is executive produced by Debra Messing, claims that “the explosion of pro-Palestine protest that immediately followed the Hamas attack came from a combination of latent antisemitism and mass misunderstanding of the Israel-Palestine situation.” Latent antisemitism is extremely true; writer Josh Marcus provides evidence of this by bringing up that more than half of the 2,699 reported religious-based hate crimes in 2023 were driven by “anti-Jewish bias,” but the latter reason is constantly up for debate.

Director Wendy Sachs relays her main argument through the faces of professors, researchers of extremism, right-wing commentators, and Israeli officials. They claimed that the left-driven protests are because of “social media algorithms, Hamas propaganda,” and along with what they define as “an anti-Israel press.” Marcus even goes further to state that they place some of the blame on “the social justice and diversity movement itself.” One interviewee, New York University professor Scott Galloway claimed that within left-driven learning spaces, “the snake started eating its own tail” and created an unhealthy orthodoxy “singling out Israel and Jews.” But Sachs doesn’t make a point of interviewing any of the “likely thousands of Jewish students” who carried out the encampment protest.

The Encampments, which is produced by Mackelmore, displays contemporary interviews throughout the protests along with a historical examination. This documentary “suggests that students were motivated by their own experiences, beliefs, and education,” going further to note that “Palestinian refugees and Palestinian-Americans with direct ties to those being annihilated by U.S.-made armaments were among those leading the protests.” Directors Michael T. Workmand and Kei Pritsker showcase students and faculty who label the movement as “essentially pacifist and, indeed, the students’ stated demands for divestment and their central tactic of using campus on the quad.”

The Encampments do not mention how this movement understands Hamas, whether they consider them to be a “laudable anti-colonial resistance force” or “religious fanatics,” and do not address the occurrences of  “overtly violent campus vandalism singling out Zionist and Jews.” This documentary does make a point to address the “widespread anxieties of some Jewish students at universities who did not support the encampments.” Along with painting the Columbia University superiors as “equal parts callous and cunning,” they made a point to mention that this was the first time allowing for mass arrests to be made on campus as well as banning activists since the anti-Vietnam war movement.

What can be stated as fact is that both films seem to paint a bleak picture of the world that is most certainly our reality.