***Director Assia Boundaoui in-person for post-film Q&As***
In the Arab-American neighborhood outside of Chicago where journalist and filmmaker Assia Boundaoui grew up, most of her neighbors think they have been under surveillance for over a decade. While investigating their experiences, Assia uncovers tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents that prove her hometown was the subject of one of the largest counter terrorism investigations ever conducted in the U.S. before 9/11, code-named "Operation Vulgar Betrayal."
With unprecedented access, THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED weaves the personal and the political as it follows the filmmaker's examination of why her community—including her own family—fell under blanket government surveillance. Assia struggles to disrupt the government secrecy shrouding what happened and takes the FBI to federal court to compel them to make the records they collected about her community public. In the process, she confronts long-hidden truths about the FBI's relationship to her community. THE FEELING OF BEING WATCHED follows Assia as she pieces together this secret FBI operation, while grappling with the effects of a lifetime of surveillance on herself and her family.
Music Box Theatre screens films of all genres and from every era of cinema, both new releases and repertory. These films may sometimes contain upsetting, outdated, or offensive material. While we aim to introduce many of our screenings, we do not always provide warnings about potentially triggering content within the films we screen. We encourage our patrons to research the film before they attend using trailers, reviews, or content information found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com.
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