Women Make Movies has just acquired BREACH OF TRUST, a timely film by emerging filmmaker and USC graduate Mishal Mahmud, that details crimes committed by Dr. George Tyndall, a gynecologist at the University of Southern California health center who engaged in sexual assault for decades without punishment and with active cover-up on the part of the administration.
The case is currently making headlines (lead stories in the New York Times, NPR, the LA Times, and more) in the wake of U.S.C.’s announcement that it will pay $1.1 billion to patients who sued the gynecologist. The case was also the subject of a 2018 LA Times exposé, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative report that first made the allegations of abuse public. This compelling documentary gives an overview of the scandal, chronicles the timeline of Tyndall’s crimes and his ultimate downfall, and bravely confronts the administration’s lack of action and willful cover-up despite numerous reports of misconduct. The story is anchored by the survivors, who after being wronged by the university continue their fight for institutional change.
This film offers important insight into an all-too-familiar story of male predators employed by high-profile universities (such as Larry Nassar at the University of Michigan and Jerry Sandusky at Penn State University) who used their positions to target students — and the administrations’ ensuing complicity in allowing the abuse to go unaddressed and unpunished.
BREACH OF TRUST is available for purchase and to book for screenings.
