Screening of Boycott

In Boycott, Julia Bacha pulls back the curtain on a movement of conservative legislators and lobbyists in the United States attempting to curtail free speech. When the film was produced, thirty-three states in the US had introduced anti-boycott laws, which require individuals and companies seeking public contracts to sign a pledge promising they will not boycott Israel. After a journalist 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. Their stories cut to the heart of a pressing national issue, and illustrate how the right to free speech could be redefined across US society for generations to come—an issue that is getting increasingly pressing also in Europe. The film emphasizes the rising importance of developing a literacy of legal processes in our current moment, but it can also kickstart a discussion on the ambivalence of free speech as shared as master signifier in liberal democratic societies.