2017 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

A woman faces the camera as she silently endures, and accepts the pain, fear and humiliation associated with domestic abuse conveying the message that her silence is an acceptance of the abuse. We didn’t film a violence scene, but rather extraordinary violence moments. And think it goes without saying, each of these vignettes is realized as both an instantly activated & 100% readable scene. An unexpected situation astounds the viewer’s attention with maximum, This-is-happening-now! Immediacy. We purposefully chose to not film scenes of overt violence but rather portray a history of violence through both haunting sound design and by showing vestiges of the abuse in her face. Each of these vignettes is designed as both a powerfully activated and instantly readable scene. The result was an unexpected scenario that holds the viewer’s attention captive to great effect with larger-than-life Immediacy.

Execution

Our aim was not to film a violent scene, but instead capture what it’s like to live through violent moments. The intense moments reflected the harsh reality that victims experience, and as such, they call for an intense presentation and setting. The darkness that surrounds our actress coupled with the sound effects and slow movement of the camera almost represent a horror movie that they have to watch every day, except it doesn’t have a good ending. We shot the film as one long continuous shot, whereby we showed the audience a time passage of a women silently enduring different types of abuse. The make up served to show the time and the progress of the abuse marks showed on the actress face.