For most of Hollywood’s history, men have held disproportionate power over how women’s bodies, sexuality, and desire are portrayed on screen. The result has been a century of images and stories shaped far more by dominant ideas about women’s sexuality than by women’s own experiences and perspectives. Our bestselling documentary Body Parts brings this largely untold history into view. Learn more about the film and how to stream it: bit.ly/4hVDmXZs: bit.ly/4hVDmXZ

On October 6, longtime MEF collaborator Jackson Katz, a global leader in the gender violence prevention field, joined CBS Mornings hosts Norah O’Donnell, Gayle King, and Nate Burleson for a wide-ranging conversation about the Cornell sexual assault case and the larger questions it’s raised about consent, male peer cultures, bystander intervention, institutional responsibility, and prevention. If you’re interested in digging deeper into the insights Katz shared on CBS Mornings, our bestselling film The Bystander Moment: Transforming Rape Culture at Its Roots, made in collaboration with Katz, offers a sustained exploration of his pioneering work. ⏯️ Watch the full CBS Mornings conversation here: bit.ly/4yyS2Rz 📺 Stream The Bystander Moment on the MEF Platform today: bit.ly/4jpi3z3

Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian graduate student who became one of the public faces of the 2024 Columbia protests opposing U.S. support for Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza, is back in the news. Just last month, pro-Israel activists in Massachusetts successfully pressured a theater operator to withdraw from a sold-out event for Khalil’s memoir, No Land to Stand On: Notes from Detention. In that same stretch, Khalil and other pro-Palestinian students were also in the news after filing a lawsuit accusing Columbia of anti-Palestinian discrimination, retaliation, and failure to protect students from doxxing and harassment. As Khalil and the Columbia encampments return to the center of a public fight over the meaning of pro-Palestinian speech and protest, our film The Encampments gives students a chance to make up their own minds about whether political and media attacks on Khalil and the protests square with what actually happened on the ground. Full blog post:

Twenty years ago, MEF had the honor of becoming the educational distributor of Byron Hurt's groundbreaking documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes. Combining cultural criticism with personal inquiry, it brought together celebrated artists like Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Fat Joe, Chuck D, Jadakiss, and Busta Rhymes with leading scholars, critics, aspiring rappers, and fans. The result was a landmark examination of masculinity, race, gender, media, and corporate power. 20 years and a succession of acclaimed films later, we’re proud to celebrate the film that began our relationship with @byronhurt, and the extraordinary body of work that’s followed. Read the full tribute on our blog and bring Hurt's films to your classroom today: bit.ly/47lGDtr

Indigenous Peoples’ Day, coming up on Oct. 12, gives educators an opportunity to celebrate Native histories, cultures, and resistance. It’s also a chance to help students think critically about dehumanizing media narratives and stereotypes that have reduced Native people to mascots, caricatures, costumes, and cultural symbols for generations. From now through the end of October, we're offering 15% off our films More than a Word and Behind the Shield with code INDIGENOUS26. View a clip from Behind the Shield below and learn more about the two films on our blog here: bit.ly/4ydntRo

The shocking allegations in the Cornell case raise urgent questions about peer cultures, bystander silence, institutional responsibility, and what it takes to prevent sexual violence. Our film The Bystander Moment: Transforming Rape Culture at its Roots, features the work of @jacksontkatz who takes those questions directly into the cultural arenas where attitudes about masculinity, sex, power, and violence are formed and reinforced, from media and pornography to sports and peer groups. Neither sexual violence nor silence occurs in a cultural vacuum. Every campus in the country needs to be asking what more it can do on to cultivate leadership on these issues and prevent sexual violence before it happens. The Bystander Moment is one resource to help your campus get started. Read the full blog post here: bit.ly/4rLjN7S

This year, Media Literacy Week (Oct. 26–30) comes at a moment when concerns about who controls our information ecosystem are becoming harder to ignore. Media ownership is becoming more and more concentrated. A shrinking number of media and technology companies, many controlled by billionaires, now wield massive power over what people see, hear, and talk about. And free speech and press freedoms are under accelerating attack. These are issues MEF has been examining for decades. Our films look not only at media content, but at the systems, structures, and interests that shape it, including corporate ownership, advertising, surveillance-based business models, algorithms, and the political and cultural forces that influence what gets produced, distributed, and seen. We’ve selected 12 films for Media Literacy Week that help students connect media content to the larger economic, political, and cultural forces behind it. See the list on our blog here: bit.ly/4z0To8A

Each October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month calls attention to the devastating toll of domestic abuse and the urgent need to support survivors. But it also raises another crucial question: What can we do to help prevent gender violence before it happens? That question is at the heart of The Bystander Moment, featuring leading gender violence prevention educator Jackson Katz. This October, we’re offering 15% off The Bystander Moment and all titles in our Gender Violence Prevention Collection with the code DVAM2026. Learn how to license the film here: bit.ly/4z22mm1

It's National Hazing Awareness Week, which invites campuses to confront hazing not simply as a series of dangerous incidents, but as a broader cultural problem. Byron Hurt’s acclaimed documentary HAZING explores the deeper forces that allow hazing to persist — including entrenched ideas about strength, belonging, and leadership. Learn more about National Hazing Awareness Week and how to access the full film on our blog: bit.ly/46IvYbV #NationalHazingAwarenessWeek #antihazing #culturalawareness #byronhurt

Within days of each other, thousands of miles apart, two firestorms have erupted over what can be said about Gaza. In Israel, the documentary NAZA went from a 25-minute standing ovation and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival to threats against the Israeli filmmakers who made it. In the United States, the rapper @Macklemore went from opening for Ed Sheeran to being dropped from Sheeran's U.S. tour after being accused of antisemitism. In both cases, the response to speaking out about Gaza moved quickly from disagreement to vilification and punishment. MEF has been documenting this pattern for decades, in films ranging from our early collaborations with Edward Said to our recent release The Encampments, which Macklemore executive produced. Read the full blog post with links to license each film here: bit.ly/471KoE6 #macklemore #naza