Joel Katz’s film follows the history and cultural impact of the anti-lynching song of the title ("Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees"), from its composition in 1939 by the writer, teacher, and political activist Abel Meeropol through its popularization, most famously by Billie Holiday. There is, of course, a lot about Holiday here, including a powerful segment of her singing the song on a BBC television broadcast just months before she died. But what gives the film its texture is Katz’s sensitivity to historical context. In footage from the era, you can see the confluence of social forces, the left-leaning WW2-era American Jewish community and the music and culture of black America. Roberta Flack narrates, with commentary by the likes of various historians as well as Amiri Baraka, Don Byron (who wrote the film’s score), Abbey Lincoln, Pete Seeger, and Meeropol’s sons, Robert and Michael. As such, the movie is as much about lynching as a phenomenon as it is about the song, and its concluding montage — from Matthew Shepard to a sign that reads "Save USA — Kill a Muslim" — feels logical and unforced. Especially when you consider that Abel and Anne Meeropol adopted Robert and Michael after the boys’ birth parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were executed in 1953. Strange Fruit screens this Sunday, April 21, as part of Jewishfilm.2002: From Kaifeng to Megiddo, at the Wasserman Cinemathèque, in the Sacher International Center, on the Brandeis campus in Waltham. Call (781) 736-8600.