Private Violence: Anything but Private

Astraea Productions and Video Dialog Inc are producing Private Violence, a feature-length documentary film and complementary web-based educational outreach toolkit to challenge viewers to reach beyond their own ingrained, often unconscious assumptions about domestic violence, while empowering them to believe that they can make a difference in stopping this cycle that afflicts so many individuals, families, and communities. We present real stories of survivors, abusers, advocates, police, district attorneys and judges, to offer a realistic and often unsettling portrait of this national plague. Woven throughout these stories of danger and survival, fatal indifference and courageous intervention, is the history of a social movement created over the past two hundred years. By beginning this national dialogue we will address entrenched belief systems and offer both ideas and inspiration that will lead to preventing, as opposed to simply reacting to domestic violence.

Short Film — Private Violence

We have already produced a 21 minute educational film also entitled Private Violence. Divided into chapters, this short documentary offers a portrait of some of the many different issues related to domestic violence, and the attitudes that help to perpetuate this epidemic. The issues covered include: the psychology of power & control, the beginning of the Battered Women’s Movement, Popular Culture representations of domestic violence through the decades, historic attitudes toward battering in America, the successes and failures of our criminal justice system, and the impact on children, families and communities. This short film serves as an example of some of the content that will be used in the longer film in which we will touch on the same topics, but in far greater detail, and with more personal stories. The sounds and images in the short film give a taste of the vast amount of archival material available to illustrate the ever changing attitudes about domestic violence in our society.

Thanks to the generous support of the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention, we will be able to offer copies of this short educational film as a gift in exchange for a tax deductable donation to the production of the feature length film. Go here for more information.

TESTIMONIALS
“this documentary is so important”
—Gloria Steinem

“I look forward to working with you to get your story told”
—Vice President Joe Biden

“The film Private Violence has exciting potential to educate, inspire and motivate the viewer--both men and women, to step up and become a voice against violence that women experience.”
—Dr. Michael Fleming, University of Northern Iowa

Ninety percent (90%) of the seniors rated the film ‘an 8 or higher’ (scale 1-10, 10 high) when asked if the video depicted the seriousness of battering in America.

Ninety-two percent (92%) of the seniors rated the film ‘a 7 or higher’ (scale 1-10, 10 high) when asked how effective the use of music artists, professional athletes, politicians, and interviews with advocates was in addressing battering in America.