Sin by Silence

WATCH TRAILER

Sin by Silence

A film by Olivia Klaus

US | 2009 | 49 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. O9978 |

License:

Format:

PRICE:

Host a screening

Watch on Kanopy

Watch on Docuseek

SYNOPSIS

From behind prison walls, a group of extraordinary women are shattering misconceptions of domestic violence. An important film that profiles Convicted Women Against Abuse (CWAA), the US prison system’s first inmate initiated group and led by women, SIN BY SILENCE is an essential resource featuring more than two hours of bonus materials, including interviews with experts on abusive relationships, law enforcement leaders and leaders in faith-based communities about domestic violence, and more.

Created by Brenda Clubine in 1989, CWAA has changed laws for battered women, raised awareness for those on the outside, and educated a system that does not fully comprehend the complexities of domestic abuse. Like many CWAA members, Brenda’s years of inflicted abuse were never fully revealed. But because of CWAA’s work and advocacy, new laws were enacted that now allow incarcerated survivors to challenge their original conviction. With unprecedented access inside the California Institution for Women, this emotionally packed documentary tells the stories of courageous women who have learned from their past, are changing their future, and teaching us how domestic violence affects each and every person.

PRESS

“Shows that intimate violence can happen to anyone—these women are every woman.”

Dr. Elizabeth Dermody Leonard Author, “Convicted Survivors: The Imprisonment of Battered Women Who Kill”

“Not only raises awareness…but offers hope to every survivor who views it. We were in tears.”

Linda Dooley Johanek Executive Dir., Domestic Violence Center

“A film that touches the soul of any human concerned with justice and fair treatment…. [A] cry for social action.”

Alyce LaViolette Founder, Alternatives to Violence

“Brenda Clubine[’s]… personal story of loss, suffering, betrayal and courage could inspire a season of movies on Lifetime.”

Cleveland Free Times

“The women of SIN BY SILENCE eloquently speak about why they couldn’t get away from their violent partner and the devastating psychological effects of battering.”

Nancy Kaser-Boyd, PhD Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

“Sparks important conversations and squashes that voice in your head that tells you nothing like this could ever happen to you.”

FilmArcade.net

“Offering a powerful look at a controversial topic, this is highly recommended.”

K. Fennessy Video Librarian

“…disrupts conventional assumptions about victimization and empowerment to provide an alternative perspective for courses on feminist activism.”

Wendy Kozol Films for the Feminist Classroom

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

Sacramento Film and Music Festival, Audience Award for Best Documentary
Winner of the 2011 ALA “Notable Video for Adults”
Cable Fax Award, Best Show or Series - Public Affairs
The Mary Byron Project, Celebrating Solutions Award

Women of Color Film Festival
Cleveland International Film Festival
Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival
United Nations Association Film Festival
Female Eye Film Festival
Starz Denver International Film Festival
Femmes en Resistance

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Olivia Klaus

Olivia Klaus is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who passionately believes in the power of visual stories to create positive social change. Her work has been seen on various networks like CNN, Discovery, MTV and The History Channel. SIN BY SILENCE, her directorial debut in 2009, went on to win numerous film festival and advocacy awards, and highlighted by People Magazine, NPR, HLN, and The Insider before being broadcasted on Investigation Discovery to over 2.5 million viewers. The film went on to inspire unprecedented legislation in California based on the documentary to improve the paths to freedom for nearly 7,000 currently incarcerated domestic violence victims who have spent decades behind bars. In 2014, she premiered her second film LIFE AFTER MANSON at the Tribeca Film Festival and an excerpt was featured on the prestigious New York Times Op-Docs series. Her producer/consultant credits include the Netflix Original LESSONS FROM A SCHOOL SHOOTING, the 2016 Sundance film NEWTOWN, 2020 Sundance film US KIDS, and Emmy-nominated BRAVE MISS WORLD. She is also the Creative Director at Orange Static - a multimedia agency specializing in documentary film websites.

Clips

Clip: CWAA women discuss the mechanisms of abuse Clip: Glenda Crosley talks about the impact of CWAA Clip: CWAA Meeting No. 847

Subject Areas

Life After Manson

Life After Manson is an intimate portrait of one of the world’s most infamous crimes and notorious killers. At 21 years old, Patricia Krenwinkel callously murdered three people at the command of Charles Manson. Now 66 years old, she continues to be demonized by the public and haunted by the suffering she caused over four decades ago. Through an exclusive interview with and never before seen footage of Krenwinkel, filmmaker Olivia Klaus (SIN BY SILENCE), frames a historically irreconcilable story through a complex emotional lens, offering insight into what led a suburban girl to commit crimes the world will never forget. A provocative and powerful character study, LIFE AFTER MANSON reveals a broken woman struggling with her past, her arduous effort to evaluate the cost of her choices, and the possibility of self-forgiveness.

Learn more

Blind Spot: Murder by Women

Because murder by women is still relatively rare--only one out of eight murders in the United States is committed by a woman--women's own stories provide unique insights into the circumstances leading to these violent acts. In this absorbing documentary, intimate one-on-one interviews with six women murderers are combined with re-enactments of their background experience and visual re-creations of their interior lives. Sharing and reflecting on their memories, fantasies, dreams, and anger, the six women candidly describe their actions as perpetrators in detail and address the issue of having taken a life. Interspersed between their separate stories are their individual reflections on coping strategies, and life and relationships in prison. From the Academy and Emmy-award winning filmmakers responsible for DIALOGUES WITH MADWOMEN, BLIND SPOT is a provocative and riveting encounter with throw-away children, out-of-control adults, and the emotional, psychological and spiritual consequences of murder.

Learn more

900 Women

“The Louisiana Correctional Institute is located in the swamps of southern Louisiana in the small town of St. Gabriel. Built in 1970 to house an increasing population of female convicts, today it houses the state's most dangerous female prisoners and often exceeds its population capacity of 900. 75% of these are mothers and one fourth of them are serving sentences of fifteen years or more. The prison compound has a surreal quality; there are no searchlight-capped towers or barbed wire fences. Filmmaker Khadivi delivers a striking, sensitive portrait of life in this deceptively peaceful atmosphere, which is filled with stories of life on the streets, abuse, freedom, childbirth and motherhood. Six women - a grandmother, a young high school student, a pregnant woman, a recovering heroin addict, a prison guard, and the only woman on death row - were brave enough to share their frustrations and hopes. Produced by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Jonathan Stack ("The Farm").” - Human Rights Watch Film Festival Catalogue

Learn more

Miss GULAG

MISS GULAG is a rare look at the lives of the first generation of women to come of age in post-Soviet Russia, where women’s unemployment and incarceration rates are very high. Shot inside a Siberian prison camp and the surrounding countryside, this absorbing documentary traces the individual paths of three young women now at different points in their lives: Tatiana, whose parole hearing and early release are captured on film; Natasha, living in freedom with her family in a remote village; and Yulia, not yet twenty and facing still more prison time. Like their individual circumstances, the shared experience of long jail sentences has made them vigilant about their own destinies. Incarceration and an environment of constant surveillance are harsh, but no less so than life outside. Yet all three women, their families, and loved ones are sustained by hope. Discovering an Internet item about an annual beauty pageant staged by women inmates of UF91-9, director Maria Yatskova (born in Moscow and living in the US since the age of five) was inspired to make MISS GULAG. The film’s compelling, moving stories of survival shed light on democracy’s darker side and offer a look at the issues facing women in post Soviet Russia.

Learn more

The Grey Area: Feminism Behind Bars

Closed captioned and audio described DVD available on request. Please email [email protected]

Learn more

Mothers of Bedford

Women are the fastest-growing U.S. prison population today. Eighty percent are mothers of school-age children. Jenifer McShane's absorbing documentary gives human dimensions to these rarely reported statistics, taking us inside Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison north of New York City. Shot over four years, MOTHERS OF BEDFORD follows five women - of diverse backgrounds and incarcerated for different reasons- in dual struggles to be engaged in their children's lives and become their better selves. It shows how long-term sentences affect mother-child relationships and how Bedford's innovative Children's Center helps women maintain and improve bonds with children and adult relatives awaiting their return. Whether it be parenting's normal frustrations to celebrating a special day, from both inside and out of the prison walls, this moving film provides unprecedented access to a little known, rarely shown, community of women.

Learn more

It Was Rape

U.S. sexual assault statistics are startling—and have remained unchanged for decades. The latest White House Council on Women and Girls report reveals that nearly one in five women experiences rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. Among college student victims, who have some of the highest rates of sexual assault, just 12 percent report incidents to law enforcement officials. In earlier studies, 15% of sexual assault victims were younger than 13; 93% of juvenile victims knew their attacker. IT WAS RAPE gives human faces and voices to statistics, breaking through the silence, denial and victim blaming that allow an epidemic to thrive. Eight women of different backgrounds, ages and ethnicities relate personal stories of surviving sexual assault in their younger years, as well as their struggles toward healing, empowerment, and finally speaking out. By award-winning feminist author, filmmaker and activist Jennifer Baumgardner, this strikingly relevant documentary will engage all audiences in needed dialogue about the prevalence of sexual assaults in the U.S., at our schools and colleges, and the elements promoting rape culture on and off campus. IT WAS RAPE is a crucial resource for colleges and communities to meaningfully address Title IX issues around sexual violence.

Learn more

Private Violence

Emmy-nominated PRIVATE VIOLENCE explores a simple but deeply disturbing fact of American life: the most dangerous place for a woman in America is her own home.

Learn more

Unafraid: Voices From the Crime Victims Treatment Center

A deeply personal documentary, UNAFRAID gives voice to four, diverse rape survivors and takes a historic look back at the pioneering treatment center where they now receive counseling. In her directorial debut, Karin Venegas highlights the work of two unsung feminist heroes in the movement for victims’ rights at the height of 1970s feminism and the Women’s Movement. From breaking victims’ silence to the revolutionary invention of the rape kit, this powerful film intimately explores the impact of rape and the capacity of ordinary individuals to effect change. Although frequently referenced in popular culture, few audiences know of the rape kit’s feminist origins. UNAFRAID is the first film to address the grassroots genesis of this important tool, which not only made it easier to convict in the criminal justice system but which helped shape our very cultural acceptance of rape as a serious crime, worthy of prosecution and compassionate treatment. Together, UNAFRAID’s collage of voices aims to lift the stigma that traps victims in silence – and to remind its audience that social change is indeed possible. Essential viewing for Criminal Justice, Law and Women’s Studies Classrooms.

Learn more

Faces of Harassment

FACES OF HARASSMENT is an experiment in storytelling about trauma. When the hashtag #MyFirstHarassment swept across Brazil, it showed not only the widespread experience of sexual harassment and assault, but a widespread hunger to bring it out of the shadows. FACES OF HARASSMENT amplifies this movement, by opening space for women to speak their own truth. The film was shot in a mobile storytelling van, parked in rich and poor neighborhoods alike across São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and open to any woman. The van was a free, autonomous space, where women spoke to the camera directly, no interviewer or other influence present. FACES OF HARASSMENT offers an honest and unflinching look at the scourge of sexual harassment and assault - and at the radical possibilities for dignity and healing that can happen when women are free to speak completely for themselves.

Learn more

A Better Man

A BETTER MAN follows a series of intimate conversations between a woman and her former boyfriend when she confronts him about their history of domestic abuse.

Learn more

What Doesn't Kill Me

Every day, 5 million children in the U.S. either witness or are victims of domestic violence.

Learn more

Breaking Silence

Three Muslim women share their stories of sexual assault—and, in a deeply personal way, they challenge the stigma that has long suppressed the voice of survivors.

Learn more

Home Truth

In the wake of her daughters’ murders, a mother takes a historic lawsuit about police non-enforcement of restraining orders to the Supreme Court.

Learn more

Behind the Rage

Women’s rights activist and BAFTA, Peabody, and Emmy-winning filmmaker Deeyah Khan explores male violence against the women they claim to love – and asks if, behind the rage, rehabilitation and change is possible.

Learn more

Apart

Against the backdrop of a Midwestern state battling industrial decline, an opioid epidemic, and rising incarceration rates, APART offers an intimate portrait of three women who return home from prison and rebuild their lives after being separated from their children for years.

Learn more

Belly of the Beast

Filmed over seven years with extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated people, this Emmy-winning documentary exposes a pattern of illegal sterilizations, modern-day eugenics and reproductive injustice in California prisons.

Learn more

Troop 1500

Their mothers may be convicted thieves, murderers and drug dealers, but the girls of Troop 1500 want to be doctors, social workers and marine biologists. With meetings once a month at Hilltop Prison in Gatesville, Texas, this innovative Girl Scout program brings daughters together with their inmate mothers, offering them a chance to rebuild their broken relationships. Intimately involved with the troop for several years, the directors took their cameras far beyond meetings to explore the painful context of broken families. Powerful insight comes from interviews shot by the girls themselves, which reveal their conflicted feelings of anger and joy, abandonment and intimacy—as well as the deep influence their mothers still have on them. An estimated 1.5 million children have incarcerated parents and 90 percent of female inmates are single parents. Their daughters are six times more likely to land in the juvenile justice system. TROOP 1500 poignantly reveals how an inspired yet controversial effort by the more than 90-year old Girl Scouts organization is working to help these at-risk young girls deal with their unique circumstances and break the cycle of crime within families.

Learn more

Freedom Road

FREEDOM ROAD is a barren stretch that leads in and out of the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. Yet for some of the women incarcerated there, freedom has been redefined through the power of the pen. A testament to the profound influence of arts and education, Lorna Johnson’s compelling film features six female prisoners who are part of a unique memoir-writing workshop called “Woman is the Word.” Reading classic autobiographies such as INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL by Harriet Ann Jacobs and THE CANCER JOURNALS by Audre Lorde, the women are empowered to claim the events of their own lives and retell their own stories—ultimately liberating them from long-held secrets and silence. Moving interviews with the women inmates, their instructors and family members combined with verité footage of their fascinating classroom discussions reveal how poverty, under-education, domestic abuse have had a role in the destiny of many women in the program. Ultimately, the film examines the devastating cycle of imprisonment for the poor and underprivileged, and points to an inspired embodiment of prison reform.

Learn more

OUR CATALOG

Sin by Silence

SYNOPSIS

PRESS

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Clips

Subject Areas

RELATED LINKS

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

Life After Manson

Blind Spot: Murder by Women

900 Women

Miss GULAG

The Grey Area: Feminism Behind Bars

Mothers of Bedford

It Was Rape

Private Violence

Unafraid: Voices From the Crime Victims Treatment Center

Faces of Harassment

A Better Man

What Doesn't Kill Me

Breaking Silence

Home Truth

Behind the Rage

Apart

Belly of the Beast

Troop 1500

Freedom Road