Making Movies that Matter and Other Highlights of 2025
J Haaken Productions has had an active year of events, both in-person and virtual screenings, as well as festival and organizational events.
This year we’ve had over 110 screenings of The Palestine Exception across the country, at the Capital City Film Festival, Chicago Palestine Film Festival, and Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival. And in Europe, Palæstina Film Festival (Denmark), Exile Film Festival (Sweden), and London Palestine Film Festival (UK). We are honored to receive the award of Best Documentary Feature at Morehouse College’s Human Rights Film Festival.
The Palestine Exception is a searing and unflinchingly honest account of what it means to stand for something, and the immense consequences of speaking up. This is a vital documentary for our present moment, but also a terrifying look at how institutional power has always tried – and will always try – to enforce silence on every last one of its critics.
Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Winner of National Book Award
New Release
J Haaken Productions has created a sequel to The Palestine Exception, SUMUD: A Doctor’s Report on Genocide and Survival in Gaza.
As increasing numbers of journalists in Gaza are killed by Israeli forces, Gazan health care workers and international volunteers serve as vital reporters bearing witness to the ongoing genocide. This film follows an American anesthesiologist volunteering in Gaza, with commentary from an Egyptian-Canadian journalist and writer reporting on the genocide. The doctor calls out the medical profession in the US where the “Palestine exception” on genocide in Gaza speaks volumes.
Global Spotlight
We were delighted to participate in the Climate Tipping Point 2025 film festival in Taipei, Taiwan where we screened Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance.
This film follows anti-nuclear activists, tribal leaders, scientists and attorneys as they draw lessons from the decades-long campaign to shut down the Trojan Nuclear Power plant in Oregon and extend those lessons into a new struggle to stop small modular reactors (SMRs) from being built across North America.
Thank You to Our Friends & Supporters!
We want to express our deep appreciation to the many people who contribute to these documentary projects and who have helped us to maintain momentum. We continue to expand our networks to build our “anti-nuclear renaissance!” and to challenge institutional power that collaborates with the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
And finally, welcome to our new Communications Coordinator, Sarah Chivers. Most of us on the team are volunteers but we do have paid staff roles and hard costs associated with screening events. So please help us keep these shows on the road! Support independent activist cinema!
Thanks so much,
--Jan