By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Patrick Bresnan
Year: 2026
Running time: 105
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt39465613
Peter says: “I just recently finished teaching Fahrenheit 451, and unfortunately, this documentary is proof that Bradbury’s warnings are as relevant as ever.
“In 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took over the ultra-liberal New College in Sarasota. It’s the sort of school where it’s totally normal to arrive to class barefoot and call all your professors by their first names – a bohemian haven for intellectual youngsters. But DeSantis is the opposite: a buttoned-down, conservative blowhard. His changes to the school pushed his own ideologies: replacing the trustee members, removing ‘irrelevant’ books from the library, and shuttering entire departments like Gender Studies in favor of a baseball program.
“It’s such a transparent attempt at winning the ‘culture wars’ it’s sickening. A lot of New College alumni were in the IFF Boston audience, booing, clapping and snapping along at every moment. While I think some aspects of the school are a little ‘out there’ (personally, I prefer shoes on!), this sets an alarming precedent for the government to dismantle a community, a ‘home’ for so many, and turn it into a political hot zone.
“While I appreciated the message and the brave students involved, the filmmaking itself lacked the ‘oomph’ to give this story the impact it needed. It focuses heavily on the students, but the more compelling material is the legal battles being waged between the New College old guard and the new administration trying to take everything away.
“I never got a full sense of the origins of this unfolding culture war or the history of college censorship. It’s a lot of heavily-pierced liberal students and their well-read professors in their classrooms, talking about how sad this all is, when the more interesting thread is all the confrontations, like the shutdown of the conservative commencement speaker or the heated trustee meetings with pissed off parents.
“I suspect a more tightly produced version of this story will eventually be told, but First They Came for My College remains a valuable record of an important event, told by those who lived through it.