‘Pressure Points’ doc tells the story of Berkeley’s historic divestment debate

A feature film has been produced about the historic coalition effort led by UCBerkeley’s Students for Justice with Palestine (SJP) to pass a divestment bill at UCBerkeley in 2010. 

The documentary, PRESSURE POINTS: Israel, Berkeley and the Divestment Resolution includes testimonies from the UCB’s Student Senate proceedings and explores the historic significance of the campaign within the context of U.S. social justice movements.

Pressure Points has already been selected for several international film festivals, first premiering at the Karama Human Rights Festival in Amman, Jordan, in December 2012. The American premiere will be at the Fallbrook International Film Festival in April followed by the 2013 London Palestine Film Festival in May.

Producers Metier Human Rights:

The University of California at Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement, recently saw the nation’s first extended public debates over the merits of a resolution advocating the divestment from companies militarily supporting Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the blockade of Gaza.

Using interviews, film from the Berkeley student senate proceedings, and supporting documentary footage from Palestinian territories and Egypt, PRESSURE POINTS explores the dynamics of the debate and its historic significance within U.S. social justice movements. Testimony of pro-Israel students from groups such as Hillel and top Israeli diplomat Akiva Tor is counterpointed by witnesses including several Palestinian students, a Holocaust survivor, representatives from Jewish Voice for Peace, diverse student activists, and noted academics.

The debates and the senate votes marked a watershed in American and international views on the justice of Israel’s policies in Palestine, and a significant advance in the acceptance of boycott, divestment and sanctions as effective tools for ending the occupation and blockade, as the world sees a re-enactment of the international anti-apartheid movement that transformed South Africa.