Campus Rape Doc THE HUNTING GROUND Exposes US Sexual Assault Epidemic

Guest Bio

THE HUNTING GROUND delivers a devastating indictment of campus “rape culture,” taking audiences straight to the heart of a shocking epidemic of violence and institutional cover-ups sweeping college campuses across America. Using vérité footage, expert insights, first-person testimonies and a bombshell interview sure to make headlines, the team behind the Oscar®-nominated THE INVISIBLE WAR presents a scorching exposé of the startling prevalence of sexual assault at bastions of higher learning and of the powerful interests that re-victimize vulnerable students while shielding perpetrators. In raw and emotional interviews, rape survivors and their families testify to a real-life horror story that has become all too common.

The filmmakers uncover an alarming effort on the part of universities and colleges to downplay and deny sexual assaults on their campuses to keep crime statistics low and public approval high. They also follow two courageous survivors, Andrea Pino and Annie Clark, who are striking back with an innovative legal strategy that uses Title IX legislation to make the powers that be take notice, ignite a national debate over campus assaults and create a network of support for young women who refuse to remain silent.

Kirby Dick is an Academy Award®-nominated and two-time Emmy Award®-winning documentary film director. His most recent feature, THE INVISIBLE WAR, a groundbreaking investigation into the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military, won 2014 Emmy Awards for Best Documentary and Outstanding Investigative Journalism, Long Form; a 2013 Peabody Award; and the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. It was also nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature.

Dick’s prior film, OUTRAGE, an indictment of the hypocrisy of powerful, closeted politicians and the institutions that protect them, was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. In 2006 he directed THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, a breakthrough investigation of the highly secretive film-ratings system that compelled the MPAA to make long-overdue changes. In 2004, he directed TWIST OF FAITH, the story of a man confronting the trauma of his past sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, which received an Oscar® nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

Dick’s other films include DERRIDA, a complex portrait of the world-renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida, which won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival, and the internationally acclaimed SICK: THE LIFE & DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Amy Ziering is an Academy Award-nominated and two-time Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her most recent film, THE INVISIBLE WAR, a groundbreaking investigation into the epidemic of rape in the U.S. military, won the Audience Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, the 2012 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary, the 2014 Emmy Awards for Best Documentary and Outstanding Investigative Journalism, Long Form, and was nominated for an Oscar.

Her previous film, OUTRAGE, for which she received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, is a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of powerful, closeted politicians and the institutions that protect them.

Prior to this, she co-directed and produced DERRIDA, a documentary about the world-renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida and the philosophy movement known as deconstruction. The first film Ziering produced was writer-director Richard Cohen’s critically acclaimed documentary TAYLOR’S CAMPAIGN, about Ron Taylor, a homeless man who ran for a seat on the Santa Monica City Council.