BBC Storyville and Canada’s CBC board college culture wars doc from Gibney, Hoffmann Meyer

Canadian pubcaster CBC and the BBC’s factual strand BBC Storyville have both boarded feature documentary Speechless, about the culture wars being waged in US university and college campuses.

Ric Esther Bienstock

To be produced by Toronto-based prodco Good Soup Productions in association with The Why Foundation, the doc meets students, faculty and administrators to lay bare the ideological clashes, political divides and personal battles shaping the future of higher education.

It’s directed by Canadian filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock (Enslaved) and is executive produced by factual heavyweights Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Taxi to the Dark Side) and Mette Hoffmann Meyer.

Gibney said: “As a society, we stand at a crossroads where the principles of free speech and intellectual inquiry are under siege. This documentary shines a much-needed spotlight on the critical issues facing higher education today and challenges us to confront the consequences of stifling dissenting voices.”

Producer/director Bienstock added: “In these dangerously polarised times, I thought it was essential to investigate the institutions shaping the minds of our future citizens and leaders. It’s easy to mock woke politics and rant about right-wing agendas, but the reality is more nuanced and, from what we’ve witnessed, way more dramatic. And now, with Trump in the White House and academia in his sights, the future of higher education has never been more precarious.”