Private Violence
| Year | 2014 |
| Director(s) | Cynthia Hill |
| Genre(s) | Documentary Feature |
| Runtime | 77 min |
| Producer(s) | Artemis Rising Foundation, Chicken & Egg Pictures, Cindy Waitt, Cynthia Hill, Gloria Steinem, Judith Helfand, Julia Parker Benello, Lilly Hartley, Regina K. Scully, Wendy Ettinger |
The most dangerous place for a woman in America is her own home; every day in the US, at least four women are murdered by abusive partners. This film addresses the common remark: “why doesn’t she just leave?” Through the eyes of two survivors – Deanna Walters, a mother who seeks justice for the crimes committed against her at the hands of her estranged husband, and Kit Gruelle, an advocate who seeks justice for all women – we bear witness to the complicated and complex realities of intimate partner violence. Their experiences challenge entrenched and misleading assumptions, providing a lens into a world that is largely invisible – a world we have locked behind closed doors with our silence, our laws and our lack of understanding. Kit’s work immerses us in the lives of several other women as they attempt to leave their abusers, setting them on a collision course with institutions that continuously and systematically fail them, often blaming victims for the violence they hope to flee.