This is not the path I thought my life would take, and it is certainly not for everyone. It started when I was a junior in college. Pino: We've been working with the film for two years. We've been on the road more than a month.Īnnie Clark: We haven't paid our Internet because we haven't used it.Ĭlark: Yes. Where: In Los Angeles, between flights, on their multistate speaking tour in support of the film and their nonprofit, End Rape on Campus (EROC).Īllison Glock: How has your life has been since the release of the film in January?Īndrea Pino: We've been traveling nonstop across the country, helping survivors, speaking at campuses. Both attended the University of North Carolina. Who: Activists and heroes of the powerful campus rape documentary "The Hunting Ground," Andrea Pino, 23, and Annie Clark, 25. The aim is to cover topics high and low, deep and less so, to present a fresh look at folks we think we know and meet some others we wish we'd known all along. But at least Kinsman finally gets to be heard.In this signature espnW column, Allison Glock sits down for a candid Q&A with a remarkable person or, in this case, remarkable people. Would they change their minds if they heard Kinsman recount how the same police officers who watched bruises appear on her body as she sat in the ER discouraged her from filing a report and took 10 months to investigate her claims? Winston went on to win the Heisman Trophy and remains a top draft pick.ĭick then brings his camera to an FSU game, where fans refer to Winston as Black Jesus and call Kinsman an attention-seeking groupie. From there, she recalls being vilified after she accused Florida State University football star Jameis Winston of rape. She starts her story by sharing a picture of herself as a little girl in a Florida State University cheerleader uniform and discusses her medical school aspirations. Take Erica Kinsman, giving her first on-camera interview. That one sentiment repeats throughout: No matter how horrible the assaults, the schools' treatment of the women afterward was worse. When they reported the incidents, they met resistance from campus administrators, who knew that the more sexual assaults logged, the less appealing their schools would look to both potential students and alumni donors. Clark and Pino, as well as the other high-achieving women interviewed, calmly recount their horrific stories. The women are allowed to speak for themselves. In 2013, they filed a Title IX suit against their university. Clark was raped before classes even started her freshman year. Dick and producer Amy Ziering got the idea for The Hunting Game while touring for War, and found that many women on campus shared similar stories.ĭick structures The Hunting Ground around Annie Clark and Andrea Pino, two University of North Carolina students who bonded over their shared experiences of rape and have spent much of their early 20s fighting for victims' rights. He tackled rape in the military in 2012's The Invisible War, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The accomplished director ( This Film Is Not Yet Rated) has chronicled sexual assault before. But is that such a problem when no one has been fair to his subjects? Dick's purpose is not to be fair to both sides. The Hunting Ground is a clear piece of survivors' advocacy.
Late last month, police in Charlottesville, Va., announced that they had found no evidence of rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house implicated in a controversial 2014 Rolling Stone article.
It comes out of nowhere when the women (and a few men) talk about sexual assaults they suffered as college students, and the abhorrent treatment by institutions of higher learning when they bravely chose to report the incidents.ĭick's documentary is released as campus sexual assault hits the headlines once again. The laugh is heartbreaking, for it is so clearly a mechanism to stanch their tears. Many of the women who speak about their experiences in the Kirby Dick documentary The Hunting Ground share one disturbing tic: a nervous laugh.