Synopsis:

The Story We Broke follows Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Jude Taha and a collective of student reporters who documented the 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, capturing a historic protest movement from within. As both a participant and reporter, Jude navigates grief, institutional backlash, and questions of journalistic objectivity while challenging dominant corporate media narratives on Gaza and those who mobilise against the genocide. Through vérité footage, investigations into media bias, and intimate portraits of young journalists under pressure, the film examines who gets to tell the truth in moments of political rupture. Moving between New York and present-day Jordan, where Jude now teaches journalism, the documentary becomes both a record of resistance and a reflection on witnessing, community, and the heartbreak of documenting genocide in real time.

Director’s profile:

Gaia Caramazza is an award-winning filmmaker and journalist whose work explores politics, identity and resistance. Her reporting has appeared across print, audio and television outlets including The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, Al Araby Al Jadeed and the BBC World Service. Raised between Jordan and Tunisia during Iraq’s invasion and the Arab Spring, she was inspired early on to become a reporter and is currently based between Rome and New York City.

Born in Italy and raised across the Middle East and North Africa, she became acutely aware of Western media’s racialised portrayals of the region. Her film about student journalism countering harmful media narratives vilifying communities mobilising for Palestine earned her a fellowship with the Bertha Foundation in collaboration with Watermelon Pictures. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School and a Pulitzer Center reporting fellow, Gaia is committed to making films that challenge dominant narratives with nuance and empathy.

Producer’s profile

Sanjna Selva is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist and consultant based between New York and Tunis. Her directorial debut, Call Me Anytime, I’m Not Leaving the House, filmed two days after the invasion of Ukraine began (PBS, POV Shorts Season 5), became the first film about the war to air in North America.

Her work has appeared through Al Jazeera, PBS, CBS, the Cannes Film Festival and the International Center of Photography, and has been supported by institutions including Firelight Media, Open Society Foundations, the Center for Asian American Media, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the New Museum.

Sanjna serves on the board of REEL Film and has juried the Cannes Lions Awards and the International South Asian Film Festival (ISAFF).