Boulder Police Shut Down Palestine Film Screening

Photos courtesy of Elena Rodriguez, 2025

El Diario de la Gente

At a recent Sept. 5 film screening of the Palestinian film “The Time That Remains,” scheduled to be held by student groups Boulder Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Give Us The F—ing Camera (GUT-C), students who arrived to set up the screening from both groups were met by a police presence blocking their entry into the theater that was booked for the screening. The initial excuse given by the police was that the theater room, situated in the ATLAS Institute, had not been booked through “proper channels,” even though the student who booked the room is an employee in the Cinema Studies department at the ATLAS Institute, and had booked it through “proper channels.”

After being met with pushback by both SJP and GUT-C, the police changed their story, with one officer, occupied in the process of attempting to lock a door, saying that the CU administration was prohibiting the screening from happening because a non-registered organization was collaborating with GUT-C on the event. This is in reference to SJP’s deregistration by CU Boulder last year after an engineering career fair disruption. Although non-registered organizations have held events on the CU campus, an anonymous SJP member feels the university has decided to target them for their anti-genocide message, stating, “CU Boulder is deeply invested in the military industrial complex and has imperialist roots from its founding. This repression shows that even something as simple as a movie opposing their imperialism is enough to cause backlash.”

In a statement released by GUT-C the same day on their Instagram story, they stated, “This screening has always been advertised as a screening with SJP. There were no emails just an officer there explaining that if we showed the film GUT-C could face sanctions as a student group.” GUT-C is a registered student organization on the CU Boulder campus aimed at prioritizing minoritized students’ voices in the film industry, where they are often underrepresented and left behind, especially on the CU Boulder campus, where, according to a study conducted by College Factual, 74% of Cinema Studies Majors identify as white and 59.7% identify as male.

Waiting in the lobby, many community members and CU students wondered if they would still be able to see the film, and although it was cancelled and rescheduled, SJP and GUT-C were able to raise $346 for two Palestinians in Gaza, Feras and Razan, who are fundraising to survive and complete their education as many students around the globe return to college. Individuals can still donate to the two Palestinians and are encouraged, as they both require a lot more money to reach their goals.