The Feeling of Being Watched is an incredibly personal and frightening account of the one of the largest counterterrorism investigations ever conducted in the United States pre-9/11, code-named ‘Operation Vulgar Betrayal’. In the Arab-American neighbourhood where director Assia Boundaoui grew up, her family and neighbours all believed they had been under surveillance for years. Now working as a journalist, Boundaoui takes a startling look at the struggles to navigate Kafkaesque bureaucratic processes, confronting long hidden truths about the FBI’s relationship to her community, and revealing the enduring impact that a lifetime of surveillance has had on everyone involved.
Content Warnings: Racism, discrimination, slurs