What challenges did you face in filming on the college campuses where survivors had been assaulted? Did you have any problems with security guards, or getting permits, or anything like that? We really want people to feel protected, and I think they do. We say that their health and well-being is most important, and that they could start and stop, and anything that they don’t want to say they don’t have to. She’s a mother and she has three daughters, and she’s able to create a really safe space for them.
Yeah, we did the same thing with “ The Invisible War,” I mean partially because most of the survivors we were dealing with were women, but also because she has an excellent interview style to begin with, even for people who aren’t survivors. Well, Amy Ziering, the producer, did the interviews with the survivors. How did you pitch the film to your subjects before interviewing them? Because not only can you see them, but also you acknowledge the courage and the risk that these people are taking to help, not only to be a part of the film, but to address these issues to society. I think that’s there’s something about having the name and the face that I think means even more to audiences. But we had so many people, sadly, who had been assaulted and we didn’t need to use that tactic. I had never seen it before, and we were thinking that if we ended up using those interviews, it will be kind of novel, instead of shadows. But we actually did some interviews where we interviewed them both in focus, and then we had this sort of out-of-focus idea with the background in focus. Was the film always planned to use the names of survivors, and feature their stories concerning incidents on campuses? But if it’s affecting people that way, hopefully it will help to make change.
Or, people come up to you afterwards and you can just see in their eyes. And even in screenings, people are standing up and saying that they went to school thirty years ago and they say something happened to them, and they’re talking about it publicly for the first time and breaking down. Yeah, it becomes a part of who you are every time you make a film that this is such an intense subject and intense experience. I think that’s true in many ways about any artist making any piece of art.Įspecially when you ’ re done making films like “ The Invisible War ” and “ The Hunting Ground, ” are you able to separate yourself from the material, or is it always rattling in your brain? I won’t say it’s schizophrenic, but you’re kind of looking at things from both perspectives at the same time. But on the other hand, you have to still be emotionally affected by this because if you’re emotionally affected, you know that audiences are very likely going to be as well. I mean, obviously you have to maintain an objectivity to this material, because you’re trying to construct something and you have to sort of be outside of it to construct it. KIRBY DICK: Yes and no, I guess I would say. When crafting this and interviewing these subjects, do you have to become more detached as an editor? On the day of the film’s opening in Chicago, sat down with Dick to discuss his riveting film, the way that students and activists influenced its filmmaking, his choice to feature the names and stories of assault survivors, and more. Clark and Andrea Pino, co-founders of the End Rape on Campus organization, as they discover a way to hold the colleges that they love accountable for their disturbingly poor response.Ī must-see for students as much as their parents and college administrators, “The Hunting Ground” has the powerful ideologies within its outrage to change the nation’s muffled discussion on the issue, including the forfeit of the disgusting practice of victim-blaming, to encouraging campuses to acknowledge these events, and even more so, to act upon them. Engaging viewers with the stories of survivors who put a name, face, and experience to a slew of statistics, the film also follows the activism of Annie E.