First They Came for My College

First They Came for My College is a 2026 American documentary film directed and produced by Patrick Bresnan. The film follows the political takeover of New College of Florida after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appointed six conservative trustees to the public honors college's Board of Trustees in January 2023. It centers on students, faculty, campus journalism, and the social and academic changes that followed the new board's arrival.

First They Came for My College
Directed by	Patrick Bresnan
Produced by	Patrick Bresnan Holly Herrick Harry W. Hanbury Zackary Drucker
Starring	Gaby Batista Chloe Rusek Tracy Fero Libby Harrity Isaac Tellechea Maria Vesperi Dylan Niner Lindsey Jennings Joshua Janniere Amy Reid
Cinematography	Patrick Bresnan Sara Kinney Daniel Raphael Potthast
Edited by	Leah Marino Ivete Lucas
Music by	Michael Montes
Production companies	Harry Hanbury Productions Otis Lucas Productions
Release date	March 6, 2026 (2026-03-06) (True/False Film Fest)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The documentary uses verite footage, student-shot video, board-meeting recordings, and observational scenes on campus to depict New College as a local institution caught within a larger national fight over higher education, diversity programs, academic freedom, and censorship. The film's official synopsis says Bresnan embedded with the student newspaper, an outspoken professor, and students from across the political spectrum as the campus became a microcosm of American culture-war politics.

First They Came for My College had its world premiere at the True/False Film Fest in Columbia, Missouri, on March 6, 2026. It screened at SXSW as its Texas premiere and later played at the Florida Film Festival, SFFILM, Independent Film Festival Boston, RiverRun International Film Festival, and DC/DOX, among other venues. Public listings identify the film as a 105-minute English-language documentary from the United States.

The film won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2026 Florida Film Festival.

Synopsis

The film begins with the January 2023 change in leadership at New College of Florida, a small public liberal-arts college in Sarasota. The official film synopsis describes the board appointments as the start of a "hostile takeover" in the lead-up to DeSantis's 2024 presidential campaign, with new trustees including Christopher Rufo and Matthew Spalding. The documentary follows the resulting conflict between the new administration's attempt to remake the school and the students, faculty, alumni, and organizers who opposed that transformation.

Rather than presenting the story only through outside narration or retrospective interviews, the documentary follows New College from inside its campus culture. It observes the student newspaper, classroom conversations, board meetings, protests, faculty organizing, the student-run food forest and garden, and performances such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The film also follows students who document their own experiences, including moments of protest, friendship, frustration, and uncertainty about the future of the college.

The documentary's central narrative concerns what happens after political power changes faster than institutional culture can respond. Students and professors attempt to preserve the school's academic model and campus traditions while administrative decisions affect tenure, gender studies, diversity programs, student spaces, athletics, and the public meaning of the college. The film frames New College as both a specific Sarasota campus and an example of a broader national struggle over public higher education.

Participants

Public film listings and the official participant page identify the film's principal student and faculty participants as members of the New College community whose experiences became central to the documentary. Letterboxd lists Gaby Batista, Joshua Janniere, Libby Harrity, Lindsey Jennings, Dylan Niner, and Amy Reid among the cast, while the official site also identifies Chloe Rusek, Tracy Fero, Isaac Tellechea, Maria D. Vesperi, Denicia Finney, Calypso Camacho, and other New College students, alumni, faculty, and administrators.

• Gaby Batista was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The Catalyst and became a protest leader and organizer after the takeover was announced on January 6, 2023. An anthropology major and a leading voice for the LGBTQ+ community on campus, she reported on the Board of Trustees, the loss of campus safe spaces, and the administration of President Richard Corcoran. After graduating in 2024, she joined the editorial board of Old School Catalyst and worked in marketing and logistics while assisting the film's production team.
• Denicia Finney graduated from New College with a degree in philosophy after serving as president of the Philosophy Club, a member of the Student Allocations Committee, and moderator of the New College Forum. The official film site states that she plans to begin graduate school in fall 2026.
• Tracy Fero is an entrepreneur, community leader, and grandmother who became one of the most outspoken parents of a New College student during the takeover. Her transgender child transferred to Hampshire College, and Fero remained politically active.
• Libby Harrity was president of the New College Student Senate and led protests against the takeover. During DeSantis's visit to sign anti-DEI legislation at New College, she confronted trustee Christopher Rufo, who threatened to charge her with a felony. After receiving national attention, she transferred to Hampshire College and later enrolled as a law student at Rutgers University.
• Joshua Janniere is a filmmaker and photographer from Queens, New York, who served as one of the documentary's student camera operators. While studying at New College, he wrote and directed María, footage from which appears in the film, and Bender. The official site also identifies his thesis project as The Dinner Party, a film about grief and isolation.
• Lindsey Bliss Jennings is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and environmentalist from Sarasota and a 2024 graduate of New College. She works at the intersection of sustainability, storytelling, and community care, and contributed student-shot footage to the documentary. Her other work includes co-creating Into the Storm, designing native and edible landscapes, establishing a neighborhood food forest, and hosting community mindfulness gatherings.
• Dylan Niner is an environmental scientist and first-generation college graduate who studied biochemistry and marine biology at New College. His academic and technical work has included an electromagnetic filter design incorporated into NASA's Artemis mission, machine-learning research on macroalgae in Sarasota Bay, and ground-penetrating radar work for New College's archaeology program. After graduation, he worked in native landscaping and environmental field operations.
• Amy Reid earned her doctorate from Yale and taught French language and literature at New College for three decades. She co-founded the Gender Studies program, represented the faculty on the Board of Trustees, and became a prominent faculty opponent of the takeover. After leaving New College, she became program director of PEN America's Freedom to Learn program.
• Chloe Rusek graduated from New College with a degree in Digital Media Production and Journalism and worked as a reporter for The Catalyst. As a student cameraperson, she documented New College traditions and campus culture and appeared as Frank-N-Furter in the college's production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. After graduation, she continued working in design, film, and visual art.
• Isaac Tellechea graduated from New College with a degree in Humanities and Creative Writing. He worked with Maria Vesperi and former Catalyst editors to develop Old School Catalyst, a nonprofit that supports student journalists and provides a publication free of institutional censorship. He later became a CNN News Associate while continuing to write fiction and poetry.
• Maria D. Vesperi is an anthropologist, former journalist, and professor emerita who earned her doctorate from Princeton University. At New College, she taught anthropology, newspaper writing, and editing and advised the student-run Catalyst. After retiring in 2024, she worked with alumni and former editors to establish Old School Catalyst as an independent nonprofit publication.

Production

First They Came for My College was directed and produced by Patrick Bresnan. Public festival listings credit Holly Herrick, Harry W. Hanbury, Patrick Bresnan, and Zackary Drucker as producers; Leah Marino and Ivete Lucas as editors; and Michael Montes as composer. Public listings often group Patrick Bresnan, Sara Kinney, and Daniel Potthast under cinematography, while the production credits distinguish Bresnan and Kinney as directors of photography and Potthast as cinematographer.

The Austin Chronicle reported that producer Holly Herrick, a New College alum and Head of Film & Creative Media at the Austin Film Society, became involved after the takeover announcement and reached out to Bresnan because she believed the subject required a filmmaker willing to understand New College as a place and community. Bresnan had previously directed or co-directed works including Pahokee, Naked Gardens, The Rabbit Hunt, and Skip Day.

According to The Austin Chronicle, Bresnan's initial idea was to make a short film about the attempt to expel student body president Libby Harrity, but he concluded that the story was larger. The article describes a yearlong process in which Bresnan worked to understand the campus, equipped students with iPhones, and filmed in spaces such as the student food forest, garden, and newspaper offices. PEN America similarly reported that the film was based on hundreds of hours of footage filmed on and around New College, with a substantial portion shot by students themselves.

The Guardian reported that Bresnan saw his role as facilitating students' ability to tell the story, and noted that the student camera operators helped reduce the distance between filmmaker and subject. The film's production approach therefore became part of its argument: the documentary records institutional conflict while also showing students as active makers of the record, not simply subjects being observed from outside.

Music

Michael Montes is credited as composer in public film listings. The documentary's music works within a largely observational structure, supporting scenes of student life, board meetings, protest, and campus performance rather than replacing the film's verite emphasis on speech, setting, and recorded events.

Release

The film premiered at the True/False Film Fest in Columbia, Missouri, on March 6, 2026. The film's official screenings page lists three True/False screenings between March 6 and March 8 and identifies the festival as the world premiere.

It screened at SXSW in Austin, Texas, where the official film site identifies it as the Texas premiere. The Austin Chronicle covered the film as part of SXSW and listed its documentary spotlight screenings at Alamo Lamar, AFS Cinema, and Rollins Theatre at the Long Center.

The film later screened at the Florida Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, and at SFFILM, where the festival program identified it as a 105-minute United States documentary directed by Bresnan. DC/DOX listed the film as a 2026 United States documentary and its DC premiere, with a post-screening discussion planned with Bresnan.

The official screenings page says the film is available to film festivals and is planned for theatrical, campus, and community venues later in 2026.

On June 7, 2026, HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver devoted its main segment to the conservative takeover of New College of Florida. The segment examined the changes made under DeSantis-appointed trustees and President Richard Corcoran, including the abolition of the Gender Studies program, faculty departures, athletic recruitment, admissions practices, and increased administrative costs. Although the segment was not a review of First They Came for My College, it brought national attention to the same events and institutional transformation documented in the film.

Reception

Audience response on Letterboxd was largely favorable, with reviewers frequently emphasizing the film's emotional force, student-centered perspective, and immediacy. Ezra wrote that "People fighting losing battles never fails to make me cry" and praised Joshua Janniere's development while arguing that every student is vital to the documentary. Kitty called the film "Truly a horror film," writing that its impact came partly from watching an ongoing struggle rather than a story assembled only from archival material.

Other Letterboxd users focused on the film's portrait of community and resistance. Nick D'Alessandro described it as "Brutal. Important work" and praised its editing and attention to the individuality of the students and faculty opposing the takeover. Several reviewers singled out the student-shot footage, Janniere's story, and the production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show; one summarized the film's view of solidarity with the phrase "Friendship will destroy tyranny."

Reviewers also connected the documentary to experiences beyond New College. Alumni and current students wrote about grief at seeing an institution that had shaped them transformed, while viewers from other universities compared the events in Sarasota with the weakening or elimination of gender-studies and equity programs on their own campuses. A Letterboxd reviewer described the film's close study of one institution as an effective way to understand a much larger and more complicated political campaign.

The Letterboxd response included some reservations. One user described the underlying story as disturbing but objected to aspects of the storytelling, while another wished that the film had expressed more anger. Other reviewers noted that certain details or student vignettes might be harder for viewers outside New College or higher education to follow. Even these mixed responses generally treated the events documented in the film as urgent and politically consequential.

Professional reviews echoed many of these themes. Stephen Saito of The Moveable Fest called the film "a compelling chronicle" and wrote that its attention to students and professors offered "much-needed hope." Valerie Kalfrin of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists praised the sense that the takeover unfolds "somewhat in real time," while Christopher Llewellyn Reed of Hammer to Nail highlighted Amy Reid, Libby Harrity, and Janniere in describing the film as a warning about political efforts to remake educational institutions.

Reviewing the world premiere at True/False, The Maneater wrote that the documentary "feels like a war movie." The Guardian called it "gripping" and emphasized the immediacy created by student-shot iPhone footage. Sean Boelman of Hyperreal Film Club called the film "incredibly emotional" and praised its focus on students, while offering the reservation that it sometimes struggled to convey the story's urgency to viewers outside Florida or academia. PEN America similarly framed the documentary as a warning about broader attempts to control higher education and emphasized its depiction of education's power to transform lives and communities.

Accolades

Awards and festival selections for First They Came for My College

Year	Award / festival	Category / status	Recipient(s)	Result
2026	True/False Film Fest	World premiere	First They Came for My College	Selected
2026	SXSW Film & TV Festival	Official selection (Documentary Spotlight; Texas premiere)	First They Came for My College	Selected
2026	Florida Film Festival	Audience Award – Best Documentary Feature	First They Came for My College; director Patrick Bresnan	Won
2026	Independent Film Festival Boston	Official selection	First They Came for My College	Selected
2026	San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM)	Official selection (California premiere)	First They Came for My College	Selected
2026	DC/DOX Film Festival	Official selection (DC premiere)	First They Came for My College	Selected

External links

• Official website
• First They Came for My College at IMDb
• First They Came for My College at Letterboxd