When the only African American on Boulder City Council travels to Palestine with collective liberation in mind, the perspective she brings home challenges the identity of one of the most liberal towns in Colorado.
In a small municipal building beneath the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, tensions flare in a community that has long prided itself on progressive values. Bombs are falling in Gaza, but city council members in Boulder, Colorado, are unable to unite around the overwhelming pleas of residents calling for a ceasefire— and the fearful responses from its Zionist community. When the United Nations exposes companies such as Microsoft and Caterpillar aiding and benefiting from the genocide in Palestine, the council votes 7-1 not to examine its financial portfolio, which includes lucrative investments in both.
Taishya Adams, the only African American woman on an otherwise White council, feels this conflict politically, and personally. In May 2025, traveling in the West Bank, her ancestral trauma is awakened as she witnesses violence, segregation, and erasure by colonizing forces. She returns to Boulder with a deep understanding that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not separate from the struggles of her ancestors, the original people of Turtle Island, and marginalized communities worldwide.
Days after her return, tensions in Boulder reach a fever pitch when a man throws a makeshift firebomb into a local protest for Israeli hostages, screaming “Free Palestine.” The city council immediately drafts a letter condemning the violence, labeling the act “antisemitic”; when Taishya requests adding “anti-Zionist” to the statement, her suggestion is met with hostility and denial. She chooses not to sign their letter, and is quickly flooded with hate mail and threats of violence from Zionist supporters. But she refuses to abandon an unshakeable belief that nuance matters, no one’s trauma is greater than another's, and our liberation is tied up in each other’s.
Can Taishya continue to exercise leadership in a city that centers comfort over justice? Will Boulder reconcile its proud identity and uphold the values it claims to support? In the shadow of slavery and stolen land, can this community model a new way forward that’s welcoming and inclusive to all?
Dewi (day-wee) is an Indigenous film director and editor based in Louisville, Colorado, on the traditional territory of 48 contemporary tribal nations including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute, and current home to members of approximately 100 tribal nations. She was born to a young Indonesian birthmother and descends from Ngaju Dayak, Banjarese, Sundanese, and English ancestors. She was adopted as an infant by white American parents who renamed her “Amy” (a name she has since rescinded) and raised her in white suburbia, with multiple journeys back to Southeast Asia for her adoptive father's work. She and her life+creative partner, Jason Houston, created their production company eight16 creative with the goal to center Indigenous voices, challenge dominant settler storytelling and colonial worldviews, and create art that inspires viewers to heal their relationships with the land and each other. They are currently in production on an art-forward body of work that explores Indigeneity lost, then reclaimed, as Dewi and others break from their white supremacy culture and seek ancestral knowledge in an urgent call to address climate and social justice crises facing humanity. Dewi is a member of A-Doc, ADE, BIPOC Editors, BGDM, Cine Fe, Creative Nations, Kin Theory, and Mountain Media Arts Collective, and has collaborated with a wide range of partners, including ProPublica and Exposure Labs.
Director, Editor — Dewi Sungai
Director of Photography — Jason Houston
Executive Producer, Creative Producer, Subject — Taishya Adams
