Case study:
Challenge:
In Romania, only 1% of victims of domestic violence victims ask for help because the society judges them harshly. When it comes to domestic violence, most Romanians have very biased points of view, such as “women are always looking for it” or “it’s her fault, she’s not obedient” etc. But that should not surprise us. The world has a long history of closing its eyes to domestic violence. And several industries have been normalizing abuse towards women. If you look at the film industry, you cannot deny the crucial role it plays in education. We simply do what we see in the movies.
Idea:
Several industries have normalized abuse towards women – and the film industry is no stranger to this. Silent films have been hiding scenes of abuse towards women under the mask of entertainment for almost 100 years. But dozens of these silent movies lost their copyrights on January 1st 2019, so ANAIS wanted to turn them into a brand new cinematographic product- one that would inspire the new generation to speak up.
This was the mission of “Unquiet Voices” - a 40-minute movie in which 7 victims of domestic violence break the silence and give voice to abused characters in silent movies. We took images from 7 different silent movies and created a movie split in 7 chapters. We matched the images with a victim's real story and then rearranged the scenes to fit the victim’s narrative. The voice of real victims was overlapped on the footage to unsilence every violent scene.
Execution:
Spread over the span of two months, the campaign targeted people in many different contexts, exposing them to the shattering confessions. On International Women’s Day, we launched an online platform to promote the movie, www.unquietvoices.com, where women can watch the full stories and record their own story of abuse in order to be contacted and helped by ANAIS. The movie is being screened in the biggest national chain of cinemas, broadcast by 2 national televisions, projected in highly trafficked art galleries and even introduced as educational material in schools, colleges and even in the Romanian Court of Law. The campaign started a national conversation about domestic violence. Famous local influencers joined the campaign and told their own stories of abuse. “Unquiet Voices” has been largely covered in the press and media, making domestic violence become a serious topic of discussion and increasing mass awareness.
Campaign board:
Full movie:
Landing Page:
