War? Ebola? No, campus anti-Israel protests are most dangerous story I’ve covered, says acclaimed filmmaker

Students interviewed for the film 'Speechless' (Credit: Speechless)[Missing Credit]

The documentary examines ideological conformity, identity politics and “cancel culture” on university campuses through a series of contentious real-world case studies, particularly surrounding gender and identity. 

Originally, when Bienstock, a self-described “lefty”, and her team began working on the film around 2016, it “was really about this new kind of intolerance on campus and cancel culture, until its scope had to be expanded to include the wave of Palestinian activism post-October 7,” the 66-year-old filmmaker told the JC.

“I really didn’t want [the documentary] to be like ‘oh my God, the kids these days kind of a documentary’ because I really didn’t feel that way. But something has shifted since I was on campus,” she explained.

“Around 2015-2016, there was a spate of protests in America, which were really interesting as a subject to me as a documentary maker. Certain ideas from around then started hardening into a kind of ideology… and more and more it felt like this ideology kind of divided people according to identity, and actually created a potentially more intolerant environment [for people] to express their ideas freely, because, of course, if you were worried about being socially ostracised or shut out of your friend group, that is a very, very potent deterrent to stepping out of line.”

The film had largely wrapped by late 2023, after production delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and was in post-production.

Documentary maker Ric Esther Bienstock in front of Harvard University Memorial Church (Credit: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

“Then October 7 happened and it was devastating,” Bienstock, who has family in Israel, said. “I saw the way in which it prompted division on campus, fuelled by social media algorithms which supercharged differences and allowed ideas and cancellations to kind of go viral.”

Because of the way in which the fallout “was playing out on academic campuses in such a profound and visceral way, in Canada, the US, and the UK too, there was no way I could do a film about campus that didn’t touch on it.

“It seemed to reflect some of the themes that I had been covering in the film prior [to October 7], and I just felt I had to include it, or it would have really felt like an unfinished film.”

Returning to campuses after October 7 felt “more dangerous than anything I had done up until then in my career”, said Bienstock, whose grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz while her mother survived the camp.

“Not dangerous physically, it was just so fraught in terms of the ideas that were being discussed and how invested, how married these young people were to their views.”

Students demonstrating on an American university campus (Credit: Speechless)[Missing Credit]

In the film, students attempt to physically obstruct Bienstock and her crew from filming. It also features interviews with a trans student who says that being openly Jewish on campus is harder than being openly trans, alongside clips of faculty and staff excusing or praising the Hamas attacks, including one Ivy League professor who described October 7 as “exhilarating”.

Bienstock said the “most shocking” aspect of the campus protests was “the timing” of the demonstrations, which erupted “while Israelis were still counting their dead and families were waiting for news of hostages”.

“These [encampments] and pro-Palestinian protests were everywhere [across the West],” she said. “They were mostly peaceful, you know, except in places like Columbia and UCLA where they got really rough. But most of the time, I’d say they were peaceful, I mean, at least not physically aggressive. They were tough on Jewish students, and I wanted to present that.”

A university student interviewed for the film 'Speechless' who says being Jewish on campus is more difficult than being trans[Missing Credit]

For Bienstock, the issues explored in Speechless extend far beyond university campuses. She believes the culture developing inside elite academic institutions will shape wider society in the years ahead.

“They will be deciding policy,” she said of today’s students. “So, I think that higher education has an obligation, and the institutions have an obligation, to walk back from the brink and really bring back civil discourse… shape the minds of future generation and remind people that we have to speak across differences… before it’s too late.”

The response to the documentary, she added, has already revealed how deeply its themes resonate within academia itself.

“I’m getting tons of letters on my website from professors who are saying ‘I’ve been experiencing this, but I haven’t been able to say anything’. I’m stunned at how many, and by how much [this film] is resonating with people.”

Beinstock has won multiple awrds, including an Emmy and multiple Emmy nominations, a BAFTA nomination, a British Broadcast Award, five Canadian Screen Awards, two Geminis, a Genie, a Royal Television Society Award and two Amnesty International Awards, among many others.

In 2024, she was honoured with a Silver Circle Emmy Award in New York for 25 years of “significant and impactful contributions to the industry”. She was also appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour, for “her commitment to raising awareness of global events and conflicts through film.”