Two people were detained at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus last night, April 30, during an attempted screening of the new documentary The Encampments (2025), according to local reports. Videos posted on social media show dozens of university police officers storming the campus in full riot gear at around 9pm as a group was gathering for the unofficial screening, hosted by the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.
The screening was timed around the first anniversary of the university’s Gaza solidarity student encampments on the Royce Quad, during which pro-Palestine students faced intense counter-protester violence and harassment on April 30 last year. Footage and student reflections from the Zionist-led attacks are briefly included in The Encampments.
The Royce Quad was also the initial location for the screening, per SJP’s flyer on Instagram, but on April 30 in the afternoon, university police announced that the area would be closed off until the following morning. According to the Daily Bruin student newspaper, the group set up their equipment at the Wilson Plaza instead, and then shifted to Bruin Plaza before police got involved.
Hyperallergic has contacted UCLA and campus police for comment. The independent student-run community news platform Poppy Press reported that one of the two detained individuals was taken to the emergency room for injuries. Hyperallergic was unable to independently verify this, or whether the two people detained were UCLA students.
In February, UCLA announced the suspension of the university’s SJP chapter as well as the related Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine chapter after pro-Palestine activists protested outside the home of vocally pro-Israel UCLA Regent Jonathan Sures, reportedly vandalizing his property with red-paint handprints and suspended banners. At the end of March, the university proposed to indefinitely ban SJP and to implement a four-year suspension of the graduate chapter.
Hyperallergic has reached out to both student organizations for comment.
Now screening nationally, the film The Encampments dissects the student-led demonstrations that kicked off at Columbia University last year in protest of institutional investments tied to Israel’s attacks on Gaza and the Occupied West Bank. The documentary features daily footage taken at the Columbia encampments interpolated with testimony from since-detained graduate student and lead co-negotiator Mahmoud Khalil, since-expelled PhD candidate Grant Miner, and co-negotiator Sueda Polat, among other voices.
Narrated by Palestinian activist and current UCLA student Maya Abdallah, the UCLA encampment’s beginnings were also included in the documentary, as were the pro-Israel counter-protester attacks on the students who participated.