A meetup that activated young audiences to think about surveillance through a screening of Assia Boundaoui’s documentary film The Feeling of Being Watched.

This meet-up consisted of the screening of Assia Boundaoui’s documentary film The Feeling of Being Watched (2018), opened by a recorded statement from its director and followed by a moderated discussion about the issues raised in the film. The documentary explores the impact of surveillance on Muslim-American communities in the wake of the War on Terror, and raises important questions about privacy, security, and civil liberties. The meetup showed what a life under surveillance looks like, and took shape as an incisive inquiry. It raised awareness of the idea of paranoia as an engineered reaction – as a tool of control that inhibits potential activism and self-expression, highlights the importance of how necessary it is to watch the watchers, and will help to increase agency.

Assia Boundaoui (DZ/US) is an Algerian-American investigative journalist and filmmaker. She has reported internationally for PRI, BBC, AlJazeera, VICE and CNN among others. Her award-winning feature-length directorial debut, The Feeling of Being Watched is a documentary investigating a decade of FBI surveillance in her community in Chicago.

Tatiana Bazzichelli (IT/DE) is the founder and artistic director of the Disruption Network Lab.