“I never imagined that what’s happening right now could ever happen. It didn’t dawn on us that we would come under attack.”
In the opening scene in the documentary “The Librarians,” a woman sits, her face obscured for anonymity. She is a school librarian, telling the story of what happened in Texas in 2021, after State Rep. Matt Krause began circulating a now-infamous list of 850 books that he decided were not fit to be on school library shelves.
We’ve all read about the unprecedented wave of book challenges and bans in recent years that has surged across the U.S., even in Washington State. But it’s one thing to read about it, and another to see it. Snyder’s documentary shows how censorship happens, book by book, meeting by meeting, and shows its devastating impact.
The award-winning filmmaker visits school board meetings and school libraries, and interviews librarians who are at the front lines of this fight. Some have experienced job loss, criminal charges, and even death threats for refusing to take books that they have chosen — books like “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “Between the World and Me” — off the shelves.
“I see this as the civil rights fight of our time,” says a school librarian in Florida in the movie.
“The Librarians,” which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, is not yet available for streaming. But the Library is fortunate to be able to host a screening of “The Librarians” this Thursday, Dec. 11 at the Central Library. It will be followed by a panel discussion with director Kim Snyder, ACLU policy director Caedmon Magboo Cahill, and The Seattle Public Library’s Chief Librarian Tom Fay.
Unfortunately, as of this morning, registration for the event is full. (You can always take your chances and show up, as we do have no-shows, but there are no guarantees.) The good news is that the film will be released more widely in 2026, and there may be other local screenings. Follow news of other screenings on the film’s website, or on Instagram or Facebook.
It’s not surprising that the screening “sold out” quickly, given the high interest in this issue in our community. Since 2023, Seattle has helped fight censorship by supporting the Library’s Books Unbanned program, which provides free digital books to youth nationwide. Since 2023, the coalition of six Books Unbanned libraries has provided more than 1 million checkouts to 51,000 cardholders. Books Unbanned is fully supported by donors to The Seattle Public Library Foundation.
The screening of “The Librarians” is presented with King County Library System, Washington Center for the Book and Washington State Library. It is sponsored by donors to The Seattle Public Library Foundation.
About “The Librarians”
In “The Librarians,” filmmaker Kim A. Snyder follows the rise of book bans that have swept through states such as Texas, Florida and New Jersey. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to expose the extremism fueling the censorship efforts. They face harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work, and still defend the freedom to read.
“The Librarians” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and has been an official selection at numerous festivals nationwide, including the Seattle International Film Festival. The New York Times review of the film wrote that “from its superb opening-credits sequence paying tribute to card catalogs of yore to its sharp selection of vintage clips and intimate reportage, ‘The Librarians’ is as well-crafted as it is profoundly alarming.”
Kim A. Snyder is an award-winning filmmaker whose film “Death By Numbers” was Oscar-nominated for Best Short Documentary. Prior films include “Us Kids,” which premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival; the Peabody award-winning documentary “Newtown”; the feature documentary “Welcome to Shelbyville,” and over a dozen short documentaries.