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THE BOYS WHO SAID NO!

As the war in Vietnam raged, one of the largest and most successful youth-led resistance movements in American history was growing at home.

  • Judith Irene Ehrlich
    Director
    THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
  • Judith Irene Ehrlich
    Writer
    THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, THE GOOD WAR.
  • Judith Irene Ehrlich
    Producer
    THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, THE GOOD WAR.
  • Joan Baez
    Key Cast
    "as herself"
    N/A
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 30 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 31, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    450,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16.9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Mill Valley
    Bay Area San Francisco
    United States
    October 17, 2020
    North American Premiere
    Audience Award
  • Melbourne Doc Festival
    Melbourne
    Australia
    July 15, 2020
    Australian Premiere
    Supreme Award
Distribution Information
  • Antidote Films
    Distributor
    Country: Australia
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Judith Irene Ehrlich

Director, Co-Producer, co-produced and co-directed Oscar, Emmy, IDA Award- nominated and Peabody Award winner, The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon
Papers. That film won over a dozen film festival awards, sold to 20
international broadcasters and made over $½ million at the box office.
Her film, The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It, was also an ITVS documentary and broadcast on PBS. She is the only person to twice win the major history film awards in the US.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The Boys Who Said NO! is my third in a triptych on war, resistance and nonviolence.
The Good War And Those Who Refused To Fight It, directed and produced with Rick Tejada-Flores, tells the story of WWII war resisters and conscientious objectors, a group of men demonized for going against the tide of war fever at great personal cost.
The Most Dangerous Man In America, Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers, with coproducer Rick Goldsmith, is the story of a White House insider and “Cold Warrior” who risks life in prison to blow the whistle on our government’s pattern of lying to sustain the war in Vietnam.
When we released Most Dangerous Man in 2010, no one had blown the whistle on government secrets since Ellsberg’s shocking revelations in 1971. Then, while we were on the festival
circuit, Julian Assange released his shattering “Collateral Murder” footage and WikiLeaks became a household name. History suddenly had new currency.
The Most Dangerous Man won the Peabody Award and was nominated for an Oscar and an Emmy, but the ultimate reward followed when Edward Snowden was inspired to release his
secrets as the result of seeing the film.
The Boys Who Said NO! follows firmly in this tradition. It is no small irony that Daniel Ellsberg took inspiration for his act from one of the protagonists in the film, Randy Kehler, a draft resister who served time in federal prison to protest the war.
Few young people standing up against injustice today are aware that those in The Resistance during the Vietnam War were just their age. They could be drafted into the military, turned
into a soldier, and sent to fight a brutal war that killed millions.
We live in a different time, almost a different country. The background was the pandemic, but we now see moments of civic disorder and intense unrest at our country’s racism and
police violence. At a time when so much is at stake, our story show courage in the face of power, bold yet nonviolent protest, and citizens changing history.
These films don’t just entertain (though we aim for that too); they inspire others to take courage and follow the call of conscience.
As the Vietnam War resisters learned from the Civil Rights movement, and as Edward Snowden learned from Ellsberg, we all need mentors as we step outside the mainstream. To make change, we need to see that others have courageously risked all to stand up for what is right and create change. As the director of The Boys Who Said NO! I hope this historic, as yet untold, story inspires the new generation of resisters