Voices Heard Sisters Unseen

A film by Grace Poore

1995 | 75 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. 99404

License:

Format:

PRICE:

Host a screening

SYNOPSIS

VOICES HEARD SISTERS UNSEEN is a powerful and inspirational film showing how survivors of domestic violence are working to change the way the system treats battered women in search of justice and safety. Interviews, poetry, dance and music combine to present a feminist analysis about how courts, police and social services 're-victimize' battered women who are deaf, disabled, lesbians, prostitutes, HIV-positive or without official immigrant status. VOICES HEARD SISTERS UNSEEN is an important call for multi-issue activism and an integrated response to services for battered women.

PRESS

"A masterful achievement. Captures the essence and complexity of society's most 'marginalized' women."

Nancy A. Turner National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

"Voices Heard Sisters Unseen belongs in our classrooms, in our communities, and in our homes."

M. Jacqueline Alexander Hamilton College

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Grace Poore

Grace Poore is a South Asian feminist lesbian writer and video activist who produces and uses video to advocate for an end to violence against women and girls. Much of her work looks at the intersections between domestic violence and other oppressions, and how mainstreaming the movement to stop domestic violence continues to marginalize women who defy the conventional understanding of domestic violence. She does video presentations and offers workshops to community and campus groups in the US. Her documentary, VOICES HEARD SISTERS UNSEEN has been screened at conferences and domestic violence workshops in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and is used by battered women's programs around the U.S. on how best to translate personal and organizational attitude into empowering policy and practice. Her video, THE CHILDREN WE SACRIFICE, is about preventing incestuous sexual abuse of the girl child in South Asian communities. It involves India, Sri Lanka, the U.S. and Canada and is being released in conjunction with community workshops in all four countries. In addition to video production, Grace has worked for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women in Sri Lanka and the US-based National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Her writing deals with the violence of coerced heterosexuality, cross-racial hostility, and the complications of multiple homes for South Asian women living in sexual exile in the US. Her essays and short stories have been published in various journals and anthologies including Sinister Wisdom, Gay Community News, Trikone, Our Feet Walk The Sky, The Very Inside, Pearls Of Passion, Options, and Patchwork Shawl: Chronicles Of South Asian Women in America.

Grace is currently the Regional Program Coordinator for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. (07/12)

Subject Areas

Disabilities Domestic Violence LGBTQI Women's Movement

MATERIALS

Study Guide

The Children We Sacrifice

Shot in India, Sri Lanka, Canada and the United States, and screened in 18 countries, this evocative, visually powerful documentary is about incestuous sexual abuse of the South Asian girl child. By interweaving survivors' narratives, including the producer's own story, with interviews with South Asian mental health professionals, and with statistical information, as well as poetry and art, THE CHILDREN WE SACRIFICE discloses the many layers of a subject traditionally shrouded in secrecy. Insights into the far-reaching psychological, social and cultural consequences of incest are accompanied by thoughtful assessments of strategies that have helped adult women cope with childhood trauma. The film also analyzes social and cultural resistance in South Asia and the Diaspora to dealing with incest's causes and its effects on its victims. This personal and collective letter from South Asian incest survivors and their advocates is both a validation of their struggle and a compelling charge to protect future generations of children better.

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

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

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

Calling the Ghosts

An extraordinarily powerful documentary, CALLING THE GHOSTS is the first-person account of two women caught in a war where rape was as much an everyday weapon as bullets or bombs. Jadranka Cigelj and Nusreta Sivac, childhood friends and lawyers, enjoyed the lives of "ordinary modern women" in Bosnia-Herzegovina until one day former neighbors became tormentors. Taken to the notorious Serb concentration camp of Omarska, the two women, like other Muslim and Croat women interned there, were systematically tortured and humiliated by their Serb captors. Once released, the pair turned personal struggles for survival into a larger fight for justice-aiding other women similarly brutalized and successfully lobbying to have rape included in the international lexicon of war crimes by the UN Tribunal at the Hague. Chronicling the two women's experience and their remarkable transformation, CALLING THE GHOSTS is an indispensable resource for deepening understanding of human rights abuses and combating violence against women in the global arena.

Learn more

Fighting the Silence

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s seven year war was the deadliest ever recorded in Africa. During that time, more than 80,000 women and girls were raped. Only now that the country is formally at peace are the consequences of the brutality becoming truly visible. Rape is slowly seeping into everyday life. FIGHTING THE SILENCE tells the story of ordinary Congolese women and men that are struggling to change their society: one that prefers to blame victims rather than prosecute rapists. Rape survivors and their families speak out openly about the suffering they endured because their culture considers women second class citizens and rape a taboo. They give voice to thousands of other survivors and their families who have chosen to hide their grief and remain silent for fear of being rejected by their families and community. Girls and women survivors tell of the brutality they experienced. Married couples openly talk about the pain they endure. Husbands talk of the pressures that led them to abandon their wives and why they agreed to take them back. A father explains why he has given up on his daughter’s future and how he wishes he could afford to take her rapist to court. Soldiers and policemen share their (shocking) views about why rape continues to flourish despite the war having officially ended four years ago.

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

OUR CATALOG