The Hunting Ground Page #10

Synopsis: From the makers of The Invisible War (2012) comes a startling exposé of rape crimes on U.S. college campuses, their institutional cover-ups and the devastating toll they take on students and their families. Weaving together verité footage and first-person testimonies, the film follows the lives of several undergraduate assault survivors as they attempt to pursue - despite incredible push back, harassment, and traumatic aftermath - both their education and justice.
Genre: Documentary
Director(s): Kirby Dick
Production: Radius
  Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 8 wins & 22 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.4
Metacritic:
77
Rotten Tomatoes:
93%
PG-13
Year:
2015
103 min
$185,328
Website
3,852 Views


She was like, "We just wanna let you know,

like, there's another victim from him. "

It's my pleasure to announce

the 2013 Heisman Memorial Trophy winner.

Jameis Winston,

Florida State University!

Is it hard for you to believe

that this all has happened?

I kinda just wanna know, like...

why me?

It doesn't really make sense.

He won the Heisman Trophy,

and the sad thing about that

is that the world of college football

didn't hold him accountable for the kind

of person that he is off the field.

The system is based

largely on money.

And it's not just revenue

in terms of TV revenue,

but it's also revenue

in terms of alumni and trustees.

We need to remember where

the power really lies on these campuses.

Presidents hire athletic directors.

Athletic directors hire coaches.

Coaches then receive salaries

that are higher than the president.

- Tell me your title.

- President of Florida State University.

Wow! So you've got to be

the happiest man on earth.

You know what? I think it's hard to find

a happier person. No doubt about it.

These cases are nightmares

for college presidents.

This is college presidents

who hold their nose and cover their ears

because they know that this

is part of what comes

with the big business of college sports.

There is a great fear

among many presidents

of alienating

important influential people.

What's the number one responsibility

of a college president? Fundraising.

One hundred million dollars

to UC San Diego,

the second largest gift

in the school's history.

Two hundred million dollars.

That's the gift University of Michigan

alum Stephen Ross has given to the school.

Harvard University has received the

largest donation in the school's history,

350 million dollars.

Good lord, that's a lot of money.

Colleges are big business.

They have boards that are trying

to maintain their endowments,

and they don't want anything

that's going to touch that.

This is about millions and billions

of dollars being spent every year

to keep this institution running.

Harvard is in the midst

of a six billion dollar capital campaign.

Donors might be troubled

if they understood the magnitude

of sexual assault on the campus.

I think that's part of the effort

to silence the problem.

Numerous times I was taken aside

by a senior tenured female faculty person

and told the way to make it at Harvard

is by being a dutiful daughter.

If you hear it, pretend you didn't.

If you see it, you shut up about it.

Silence.

There's a reason we haven't seen

more faculty involved.

It does harm your career

in ways that you can't even predict.

Certainly if you're untenured,

but even if you are tenured,

it makes it much more difficult

to move from one institution to the next

if you've been branded

an activist or a troublemaker.

I've had the honor

to work with students

who've been asking

these kinds of questions

for the five years

that I've been here.

We heard that things

were gonna happen,

but then there was

no conversation about it.

And I think there's a huge gap

in between that still needs to,

A, be bridged,

and to be discussed more publicly.

I feel like there's this moral high ground

in higher education

that is just sitting vacant.

What I haven't yet seen

anywhere, that I'm aware of,

is a president who has decided

that whatever it takes,

it has to be done.

And that's what leadership is.

...that we would tolerate

for one moment

sexual violence and intimidation

on our campus.

These assumptions are patently false,

and such speculations are

very, very inappropriate.

At the end of the day,

I think we share all the same goals,

which is to create a safe place

where all our students can thrive.

Of your 25 possible complainants,

how many of them are survivors?

Twenty.

How many are willing to go public?

Um, probably five.

So what about

just a press conference?

Yeah. That, I think could be good.

Good morning and thank you for

your attendance at this important event.

My name is Sofie Karasek,

and I'm a third year student

here at the University

of California Berkeley.

My name is Meghan Warner.

My name is Iman Stenson.

My name is Shannon Thomas,

and I'm a proud fourth year,

soon to be graduate,

of UC Berkeley.

I'm a survivor of a sexual assault

that occurred less than a year ago.

I didn't realize at the time

that the nightmare I was in

was not limited

to the night of the assault.

The process that followed is far

more upsetting than the assault itself.

When I looked at resources

from the university online,

I saw that most were

for the perpetrator,

including an info graphic

for what to do if you're accused,

not what to do

if you're a survivor seeking help.

She made me feel like

what happened to me wasn't real,

like it wasn't a big deal,

like it was my fault.

- My fault.

- My fault.

Sexual assault at UC Berkley

is an epidemic.

Several female students

say they were sexually assaulted

on the University of California campus,

but they weren't taken seriously.

We were tracking the media frame

and how it changed and where it spiked

and what articles worked and what didn't.

These students who spoke today

went from sexual assault victims

to survivors and now activists.

Their efforts are gaining

the attention...

We saw what was effective,

and that was personal narrative

and putting a face

and a name to the issues.

My name is Carolyn Luby.

My name is Alexa Schwartz.

My name is Ari Mostov,

and I would like to provide you

with a more personal account

of the kind of abuses that occurred here

at the University of Southern California.

My name is Hope Brinn.

I'm a sophomore at Swarthmore.

I was sexually assaulted and stalked

by fellow students on this campus.

I was raped during

my freshman year at Occidental.

I wish that I had not been discouraged

by a dean from reporting my rape.

I'm filing as the lead complainant

against the University of Connecticut.

- Against UC Berkeley.

- Against the institution that I love.

Okay, let's go!

Seeing students

over the last year to two years

almost taking control of this...

for me it's been

a miraculous thing to witness.

For my senior thesis,

I will be carrying the mattress with me

as long as he's still on this campus.

Our individual stories

are what makes this a story.

Here is the experience

of 700 survivors,

and unless something happens,

it's not going to change.

There is a revolution

happening on campuses across the country,

and I'm very hopeful that this really is

our watershed moment.

We are fed up!

- With your university!

- Dartmouth has a problem!

Dartmouth has a problem!

...of assault and harassment, and today we

decide that we will no longer tolerate it.

- What do we want?!

- A safe campus!

- When do we want it?!

- Now!

We're watching! We're here!

We've made ourselves clear!

It was happening so quickly.

I mean, within a year

of our complaint against UNC,

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote

Kirby Dick

Kirby Bryan Dick (born August 23, 1952) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He is best known for directing documentary films. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith (2005) and The Invisible War (2012). He has also received numerous awards from film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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