The Librarians

Showtimes updated on Tuesday evenings
Legend
OCOpen Captioned
Special Content
35mm
SFSensory Friendly

The Librarians

Q&A with director Kim A. Snyder and producer Maria Cuomo Cole

Librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and our First Amendment Rights. As they well know, controlling the flow of ideas means control over communities.

In Texas, the Krause List targets 850 books focused on race and LGBTQia+ stories—triggering sweeping book bans across the U.S. at an unprecedented rate. As tensions escalate, librarians connect the dots from heated school and library board meetings nationwide to lay bare the underpinnings of extremism fueling the censorship efforts. Despite facing harassment, threats, and laws aimed at criminalizing their work—the librarians’ rallying cry for freedom to read is a chilling cautionary tale.

"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."
Sheri Linden, The New York Times
"What Snyder does so effectively is affirming the dignity of this vocation by showing how the work of librarians goes beyond just saving books... the more this country enacts violence toward these spaces, the more spaces for people to be themselves are in decline. It’s a startling and heartbreaking picture of what we may lose."
Zachary Lee, RogerEbert.com

SPECIAL EVENTS

Q&A with director Kim A. Snyder and producer Maria Cuomo Cole Q&A with director Kim A. Snyder and producer Maria Cuomo Cole

Q&A with director Kim A. Snyder and producer Maria Cuomo Cole

Sunday, Jan. 4 2026, 2:00

  • Kim A. Snyder is an Academy Award® nominee and Peabody Award-winning Director/Producer whose latest feature, The Librarians, premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and released globally in late 2025. Her Oscar-nominated short Death by Numbers, co-created with gun-violence survivor Sam Fuentes, has won multiple awards. Snyder’s acclaimed films include US Kids (Sundance 2020), Lessons from a School Shooting (Netflix Original), and Newtown (Sundance 2016, Peabody Award, PBS). Her earlier work includes Welcome to Shelbyville (PBS) and I Remember Me (Zeitgeist Films). She also associate produced the Oscar-winning short Trevor, which spawned The Trevor Project. Snyder holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins SAIS and lives in New York City.
  • Maria Cuomo Cole is the Peabody and Emmy award winning producer recognized for making social impact on highly relevant issues with compelling artful storytelling. She has most recently produced the Academy Award nominated Death by Numbers documentary short film, The Librarians (Sundance 2025, PBS/Independent Lens) feature documentary, and Us Kids (Sundance 2025) feature documentary — all in collaboration with Director / Producer Kim A. Snyder. The film team partnered on Lessons from A School Shooting: Notes from Dunblane and Newtown, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, also directed by Kim A. Snyder. In 2015, she executive produced The Hunting Ground, directed by Kirby Dick, which investigates the epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses. This Emmy and Peabody Award-winning film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, aired on CNN and was released on Netflix in 2016. Cuomo Cole worked with the same team as an executive producer of the 2014 Oscar-nominated, The Invisible War, about the epidemic of rape and sexual violence in the U.S. military and served as a catalyst for federal policy reforms. Cuomo Cole’s 2010 documentary, Living for 32, about the tragic gun shooting on the Virginia Tech University Campus, was short-listed for an Academy Award®, aired on Showtime and was distributed by BBC Worldwide. The film achieved significant social impact at screenings in numerous festivals, and on The National College Campaign to End Gun Violence.

Tickets: $15 (members), $20 (nonmembers)

Buy Tickets

This film is part of the Community Matters: Now More Than Ever series.



Coming Soon

La Grazia

Opens 12/19

Mistress Dispeller

Opens 12/19

Is This Thing On?

Opens 12/24

Marty Supreme

Opens 12/24

The Jacob Burns Film Center is proud to receive generous support from:

Email Sign Up

Get updates on screenings at the JBFC Theater, upcoming events, and more!