Full Description
This latest documentary from the award-winning team of Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk (The Rape of Europa and The Island President) is the disturbing story of two high school girls who were sexually assaulted in unrelated incidents. The perpetrators in both cases filmed what they did and posted it on the internet. At a drunken Labor Day weekend party in Saratoga, California, 15-year-old Audrie Pott passed out and three classmates stripped and violated her and posted photos online. Pott was so humiliated that she committed suicide eight days later. The same year in Maryville, Missouri, 14-year-old Daisy Coleman and a 13-year-old girlfriend were invited to a party with five boys who plied them with alcohol till they were barely conscious. For months after, Daisy and her family suffered a witchhunt of bullying and harassment which culminated in the Colemans’ house being burned down. Even though the county sheriff videotaped one of the boys (whose grandfather was a congressman) admitting to having sex with Daisy, and another boy admitted that he filmed the event, they went scot-free. Featuring interviews with the sheriff and mayor justifying their actions by blaming the victim, as well as interviews with Daisy’s supporters, Audrie & Daisy offers unflinching insight into the attitudes that lead to the condoning of sexual violence. Screened at 2016 Sundance Film Festival
—Zoe Pollak
