Interview: The Activist Survivors of “The Hunting Ground”
Interview: The Activist Survivors of “The Hunting Ground”
It’s strange to think of Annie Clark and Andrea Pino as “stars” of the new documentary The Hunting Ground, since their “stardom” arose from traumatic real-life experiences. But they’re indeed the main protagonists of this game-changing film about campus rape, which opened yesterday today in New York and Los Angeles (and, in two weeks, in Boston, Berkeley and Washington, D.C.). Both young women were sexually assaulted while students at the University of North Carolina (UNC), and when they later met and shared their stories, they became key activists in an ever-growing movement to ensure justice for survivors and campus safety for all students.
Director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering previously turned their docu-advocacy lens on rape in the military, and their Oscar-nominated film The Invisible War helped spark congressional action. The Hunting Ground is the perfect follow-up, drawing attention to the longtime lack of accountability by universities when students are raped.
Clark and Pino spoke to the Ms. Blog this week at a West Hollywood hotel.
Ms. Blog: What do you hope viewers will glean from this movie?
Annie Clark: I hope everyone who watches the film takes something away from it, and for allies I think that’s a personal responsibility to do something, to take some concrete action or change the way they view things. For survivors I just hope they know they’re not alone and it’s not their fault and that there’s a lot of other people standing with them.
What has been the reaction to the film at the Sundance Film Festival and other screenings?
Clark: It got a standing ovation at every single screening, multiple times. Some campus administrators are hesitant to show it on their campuses because they don’t necessarily want to be portrayed in a “bad light.” But we’re not calling out a single institution: This is a problem everywhere, and the schools that are being portrayed are just microcosms of this national epidemic.
Andrea Pino: Just two years ago when the crew first started filming us, nobody was listening to us. To think we’d be premiering at Sundance, I would never have believed it.
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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/02/28/interview-the-activist-survivors-of-the-hunting-ground/
