The Feeling of Being Watched

POV Season 32
  • Feature Film
  • 2019
  • 90 Mins

In the Chicago suburb where journalist Assia Boundaoui grew up, most residents in her Muslim immigrant neighborhood believe they are under surveillance. Assia investigates and uncovers FBI documents about "Operation Vulgar Betrayal," one of the largest pre-9/11 counterterrorism probes conducted on domestic soil, right in Assia's hometown.

More from this film

Official Trailer | The Feeling of Being Watched

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

In the Chicago suburb where journalist Assia Boundaoui grew up, most residents in her Muslim immigrant neighborhood believe they are under surveillance. Assia investigates and uncovers FBI documents about "Operation Vulgar Betrayal," one of the largest pre-9/11 counterterrorism ...

Behind The Lens | The Feeling of Being Watched

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Interview

In the Chicago suburb where journalist Assia Boundaoui grew up, most residents in her Muslim immigrant neighborhood believe they are under surveillance. Assia investigates and uncovers FBI documents about "Operation Vulgar Betrayal," one of the largest pre-9/11 counterterrorism ...

Based on similar topics

Dark Money

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Feature Film

Dark Money, a political thriller, examines one of the greatest present threats to American democracy: the influence of untraceable corporate money on our elections and elected officials. The film takes viewers to Montana frontline in the fight to preserve fair ...

Survivors

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Clip

Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmaker Arthur Pratt, Survivors presents an intimate portrait of his country during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the sociopolitical turmoil that lies in its wake. During one of the ...

Nowhere to Hide

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Clip

Nowhere to Hide follows nurse Nori Sharif through five years of dramatic change in one of the world's most dangerous and inaccessible areas: the "triangle of death" in central Iraq. Initially filming stories of survivors and the hope of a ...

Whose Streets?

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Clip

When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of the St. Louis area and beyond. Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the ...

QUEST

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Clip

Filmed with vérité intimacy for nearly a decade, QUEST is the moving portrait of a family from North Philadelphia. Beginning during the Obama presidency, Christopher "Quest" Rainey and his wife, Christine'a "Ma Quest," raise a family while nurturing a ...

StoryCorps Shorts: The Temple of Knowledge

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Ronald Clark's father was a custodian of a branch of the New York Public Library at a time when caretakers, along with their families, lived in the buildings. With his daughter, Jamilah, Ronald remembers literally growing up in a library ...

A Conversation with My Black Son

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

For generations, parents of black boys across the U.S. have rehearsed, dreaded and postponed “The Conversation. But when their boys become teenagers, parents must decide how to handle discussions about race. In this short film originally published by ...

Mother's Day

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Once a year on Mother's Day, a charity bus service takes children to visit their mothers in prison across California. Nearly one in ten of the state's children have a parent in prison. Many are unable to regularly visit their ...

StoryCorps Shorts: Driven

  • Short Film
  • 2016

Short Film

Wendell Scott was the first African American inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. His son, Frank, remembers what it took for his father to cross the finish line at racetracks throughout the South in the '60s and '70s.

StoryCorps Shorts: School's Out

  • Short Film
  • 2016

Short Film

Following the federal mandate to integrate schools in the 1950's, Reverend James Seawood recalls how African Americans were forced out of Sheridan, Arkansas, the fate of his beloved school, and the human cost of "urban renewal."

Graven Image

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Using over 100 years of archival footage, director Sierra Pettengill explores the history of the largest Confederate monument: Georgia’s Stone Mountain.

The Changing Same

  • Short Film
  • 2019

Short Film

In the Florida Panhandle lies the provincial town of Marianna, Florida, where resident and poet L. Lamar Wilson runs a particular marathon in hopes of lifting the veil of racial terror caused by the town’s buried history.

Stay Close

  • Short Film
  • 2019

Short Film

Stay Close blends home videos and animation in an expressionistic montage to tell the underdog story of Keeth Smart, an African American fencer from Brooklyn who overcomes a gauntlet of hardships on his road to the Olympics.

Edgecombe

  • Short Film
  • 2020

Short Film

Through the deeply personal truths of three local residents, Edgecombe examines the ways trauma repeats and reinvents itself in rural black communities.

Clash

  • Short Film
  • 2020

Short Film

Clash is a short experimental documentary critiquing the lack of diversity in on-screen representation in the U.K. today.

Gentlemen of Vision

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Feature Film

Gentlemen of Vision follows a year in the life of coach, counselor and founder Marlon Wharton, and his 2015-2016 class of young Black males as he strives to rewrite future prospects for his students. While striving for excellence in school ...

For Ahkeem

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

Expelled from high school, Daje Shelton is only 17 years old when she is sentenced by a judge – not to prison, but to an alternative school, the Innovative Concept Academy. It offers Daje one last chance to earn a high ...

Agents of Change

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

Agents of Change examines the racial conditions on college campuses across the U.S. in the late 1960’s, focusing on student demands at two seminal protests: San Francisco State in 1968 and Cornell University in 1969. Many of the ...

100 Years

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Feature Film

100 Years: One Woman's Fight for Justice​ is the compelling story of Elouise Cobell, a petite Blackfeet warrior from Montana, the great granddaughter of the legendary, Mountain Chief. As an advocate for Native American financial self-determination and independence, she conducted ...

MILWAUKEE 53206

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Trailer

MILWAUKEE 53206​ introduces viewers to a community with the highest rate of incarcerated African American men in the U.S. The unvarnished film unfolds through the stories of postal code 53206 residents directly impacted by imprisonment: Beverly Walker and her ...
SVG/POVCreated with Sketch.

Race/Related

  • Interactive
  • 2016

Clip

In 2016 POV partnered with The New York Times on the "embedded mediamaker" project, in which three filmmakers fluent in digital media spent several months working at the Times, creating interactive video projects about race and ethnicity. The work was ...
SVG/POVCreated with Sketch.

Snapchat Films

  • Interactive
  • 2016
In 2016, POV produced the first independent films ever for Snapchat Discover, distributed in partnership with the short-form digital content creator NowThis. In Lizzie Jacobs' We'll Still Be Here, dominoes players keep their beloved game alive while a neighborhood changes ...
SVG/POVCreated with Sketch.

Whiteness Project

  • Interactive
  • 2014
Whiteness Project is an interactive investigation into how Americans who identify as white, or partially white, understand and experience their race. Whiteness Project conducts interviews with people from all walks of life and localities in which they are asked about ...
SVG/POVCreated with Sketch.

Empire

  • Interactive
  • 2014
The Dutch East and West India Companies once controlled vast trading networks that stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the Indonesian archipelago, and from New York to South America's Wild Coast. Although they came in pursuit of short-term ...

Engage with the issues

POV believes in the power of film to engage communities in dialogue around the most pressing social issues of our time. Use one of the film's accompanying resources to learn about the issues and get involved. Visit the POV Community Network to browse films available for screenings.

Discussion Guide

The Feeling of Being Watched: Community Screening Healing Guide

Reading List

The Feeling of Being Watched: Assia's Reading List

Discussion Guide

The Feeling of Being Watched: Discussion Guide

Film Credits

  • Assia Boundaoui Director
  • Jessica Devaney Producer

Related events

September 23
Screening

East Meadow Public Library Independent Film Series - The Feeling of Being Watched

East Meadow Public Library

More Events

Press Room

POV: Women Filmmakers and Protagonists Seize the Spotlight in 32nd Season POV: 'The Feeling of Being Watched' | Press Kit 3 POV Films Shortlisted for IDA Awards The Feeling of Being Watched and Blowin’ Up listed 2020 Silver Gavel Awards Finalists
More from The Press Room

Broadcast schedule

Check your local PBS station
for upcoming airings of POV

More from this series

Learn more about POV