In today’s America, political polarization finds librarians under siege as an unprecedented wave of book banning is sparked in Texas, Florida, and beyond. As the crisis escalates, they join forces as unlikely defenders on the frontlines of democracy.

COMING SOON

Would you like to set up a screening?

STORY 

In October 2021, Texas House Representative Matt Krause issued a list of 850 books for schools to review for obscene and race-related content, urging officials to develop standards to ensure “pornography” and anything that may make students feel “discomfort, guilt or anguish” be removed. The majority of content flagged had racial or LGBTQia+ themes. Parental Rights groups like Moms for Liberty dug in nationwide and book challenges escalated exponentially and became more coordinated. Vulnerable librarians were, and continue to be, targeted.

With unique access to a new movement in the making, librarians take us on an odyssey across America to tell their story to resist censorship efforts. We meet a US Army veteran who was fired for refusing to remove books with racial content — and whose County Commissioners, in the wake of a lawsuit filed by local community members alleging First and Fourteenth Amendment Rights infringements, attempted to close the public library itself. A librarian in New Jersey investigates coordinated efforts between Parental Rights organizations and a national effort to undermine public education that landed in her own school district with direct attacks, calling her a “pornographer, pedophile, and groomer of children”. A nationally lauded librarian is besieged with death threats in her native Louisiana parish where she lost 12 students to suicide because to feeling “othered.” Tensions escalate as legislation spreads proposing to criminalize librarians for distributing alleged pornographic materials to minors.

In a dystopian saga akin to a real-life Fahrenheit 451 sequel, director Kim A. Synder’s gripping documentary THE LIBRARIANS traverses small-town U.S.A. with riveting interviews and troves of archival material to reveal the story of the country’s heroic librarians, everyday Americans who have become unlikely defenders of democracy, risking everything to uphold our most fundamental of rights.

FILMMAKER

Peabody Award-winning Kim A. Snyder’s short documentary, Death By Numbers was nominated in the Best Documentary Short category for the 2025 Academy Awards after premiering at the 2024 Hamptons International Film Festival, immediately followed by the Woodstock Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival where it won Best Documentary Short, and received an Honorable Mention at Doc NYC. Her documentary, Us Kids premiered at Sundance in 2020, followed by SXSW, Sheffield, and Full Frame, where it received the Kathleen Edwards Bryan Human Rights Award and 14 subsequent festival awards.

REVIEWS

“Seamlessly assembling a wide variety of material, The Librarians observes a clutch of educators, almost all women, fighting on the culture-war frontlines” - The Hollywood Reporter

“An illuminating documentary that offers a rattling look at coordinated efforts to ban books. More importantly, it introduces viewers to the everyday and increasingly vital heroes pushing back.” - Variety

"Urges that the time for debate has gone and society should wake up” - Screen International

“Snyder provides the voices of the bookish who brave the front lines of these battles for the sake of their students, demanding that no one party can force their ideas upon another.” - POV Magazine

“A passionate and In-depth look at book bannings in the U.S. The Librarians works because it doesn't just highlight the problem, but it highlights the heroes of the movement” - Collider

“Equal parts foreboding and inspiring, recently christened Oscar-nominee director Kim Snyder’s reaffirms why the vocation of librarians is a vital one...What Snyder does so effectively is affirming the dignity of this vocation by showing how the work of librarians goes beyond just saving books”- RogerEbert.com

“Skillfully documents our crumbling democracy and those fighting to save it. Comprehensive…. this film surprises in its thorough research and succinct storytelling.” - The Film Stage

“A moving, invigorating call for tolerant thinking and freedom to prevail.” - The Next Best Picture

“This is essential viewing and will unquestionably pull in more activists to keep up the fight”  - Flickering Myth

“A hard but necessary watch, and you won’t find a more relevant and timely documentary this year” - This is For Reel

“A powerful and vital documentary at this point in history.” - Out Magazine

“A film that’s urgent, poignant, and deeply American, for good and ill, as it shines a light on the individuals who stand as the last line of defense in a fight that impacts us all.”- In Between Drafts

MORE TITLES FROM DOGWOOF