Kirby Dick’s new documentary The Hunting Ground begins with footage of young women across America celebrating. After waiting with bated breath to learn whether or not they’ve been accepted to attend their college or university of choice, they finally get the good news and share their joy and relief with their families, friends and loved ones.
But these happy scenes are followed by a sobering, shocking statistic. It’s estimated that 100,000 American college students will be sexually assaulted on campus in the space of one year — that’s one in five — and that the vast majority of these attacks will go unreported, the survivors that go public facing a barrage of denial, inaction and victim-blaming.
In shining a light on this confronting issue with The Hunting Ground, director Dick and producer Amy Ziering are hoping to change the culture. Dick, who has investigated sex crimes within the Catholic Church and the US military with his previous documentaries Twist Of Faith and The Invisible War respectively, recognises it’s an uphill battle but admits “I hold out hope”.
"Their first impulse is to deny that it happens, cover up any evidence that it happens, blame the victim."
The inspiration for The Hunting Ground came when Dick and Ziering were touring colleges throughout the US with The Invisible War. “The conversations quickly changed from the topic of the film, which was rape in the military, to rape on college campuses. We would hear, ‘It happens here; it’s under-reported; students are not getting justice.’ Then we started getting letters and emails imploring us to make this film.” In making the film, he noticed points of commonality in the ways institutions seek to silence reports of rape and sexual assault. “Their first impulse is to deny that it happens, cover up any evidence that it happens, blame the victim — there are a lot of similarities in institutional reaction.”
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And it’s not so much the legal standpoint. More often, it’s to keep the lid on a potential public-relations nightmare. “All these institutions are highly regarded by society, rightly so in many cases, and they want to protect their reputations. With colleges and universities, they’re very concerned with getting high-quality applicants so they don’t want any discussion of the fact there might be sexual assault on their campuses. Nor do they want alumni discouraged from donating money to their former school. It’s easy to talk the talk, but schools don’t really walk the walk. Our requests were either completely ignored or politely declined. If your modus operandi is to cover up the problem, there’s no way you’re going to solve it.”
Fortunately, survivors of campus sexual assault were willing to speak up. “They wanted to be part of the solution... We wanted to document that these people were making history by starting a new movement. We wanted to capture that right at the beginning. I think that’s why this film has so much power.”
