The Rebellion That Speaks Volumes

Read Time:5 Minute, 33 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Banned Together
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Genre: Documentary
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 33m
Director(s): Kate Way, Tom Wiggin
Where to Watch: Available on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Fandango at Home in the US. International audiences can rent it on www.eventive.org. Kanopy and Video Project are handling the educational and library distribution.

RAVING REVIEW: Sometimes a documentary doesn’t need to break dive into spectacle to make an impact—it just needs to be honest and fearless. That’s exactly where BANNED TOGETHER goes, and then it takes one step further. With a confidence that never veers into melodrama, it puts a spotlight on a growing crisis in public education. It lets the camera roll while teenagers try to clean up the mess left behind by adults who are either too afraid or too complicit to act. The result is a story that’s as current as it's personal, and one that never forgets how important it is to speak up when others are trying to rewrite the rules in silence.

What the film captures so well is how quickly something like a book ban can snowball from bureaucratic nonsense to cultural flashpoint. It opens with a seemingly “small” incident—nearly a hundred titles abruptly vanish from school library shelves—but wastes no time showing just how interconnected this problem is. It’s not just a rogue board vote or the actions of one disgruntled parent. There’s a national blueprint behind these decisions, and BANNED TOGETHER doesn’t pretend to look the other way. But instead of explaining the system through charts or narration, it lets the fallout do the talking.

The central figures—three South Carolina teenagers—aren’t elevated to icon status, and that’s one of the best choices the documentary makes. Elizabeth Foster, Millie Bennett, and Isabella Troy Brazoban are given space to be unsure, to stumble, to question what’s next. Their transformation from students to activists unfolds without fanfare, and it never feels like a scripted arc. We’re simply there with them as they walk into board meetings, dive into confusing legal statements, and try to stay hopeful in the face of backlash. The project earns your investment not through stylized filmmaking, but by showing how exhausting it is to be right when everyone around you is pretending you’re wrong.

There’s something to be said for the way the film keeps its scope grounded. Even without exploring every aspect of the issue, it becomes clear that these students are not just reacting to a bad policy—they’re facing a coordinated attempt to control what knowledge is accessible and to whom. When the documentary cuts to empty chairs where opposing voices were invited to speak, it makes a point without needing narration. Silence becomes the message, and that absence of accountability is far more revealing than any debate could’ve been.

Throughout its runtime, the film also draws attention to the courage of teachers and librarians—those caught in the crosshairs but rarely invited into the conversation. Some speak on record, others stay anonymous, and nearly all of them are shown reckoning with the cost of their principles. Their stories never veer into self-congratulation, and that tone fits the larger project. There’s no need to paint anyone as a savior. Simply showing up, standing firm, and refusing to bend to manufactured outrage is enough to be considered heroic in this context.

One of the documentary’s strongest assets is its ability to strike a balance between urgency and control. It never jumps to conclusions or demands that the viewer feel a certain way. Instead, it presents the facts, shows you the stakes, and lets the weight build gradually. When students are stripped of books that reflect their own identities, when authors are vilified for writing with empathy, when entire school districts operate in fear of political retribution, the threat becomes crystal clear without anyone having to underline it.

Even the more hopeful moments are portrayed with a level of care that avoids a manipulative feel. The students gain traction. They get attention. They make speeches. But the film never frames those scenes as final victories. Instead, it acknowledges them as small wins in a much larger, ongoing fight. There’s no “we did it” finale, no freeze-frame of success. Just another board meeting, another conversation, another letter to write. That realism is part of what gives the documentary its staying power—it knows that the work doesn’t end just because someone finally started listening.

And that’s the real takeaway here: this story isn’t finished. It’s barely begun. What BANNED TOGETHER understands better than most entries in its genre is that activism is messy. Change is slow. And sometimes the most effective storytelling tool is simply paying attention. When institutions count on apathy to win, the act of bearing witness becomes a challenge in itself.

There’s a version of this documentary that could have gone louder, angrier, or more investigative, but the path it chooses is arguably more lasting. It observes. And it leaves you with one unmistakable conclusion: if we don’t defend the right to read freely now, we may soon be looking back, wondering how it was allowed to disappear at all.

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[photo courtesy of ATOMIC FOCUS ENTERTAINMENT]

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