Talking to students about sexual assault on college campuses can be tricky, but one Ball State junior did just that for "The Hunting Ground," a documentary produced by an award winning director.
"The Hunting Ground" will be shown April 15 on Ball State campus by Step In. Speak Up., Ball State’s bystander intervention program.
The film is about the mishandling of sexual assaults on college campuses, and how many universities aren’t doing the right things to deal with sexual assault cases that are brought to them, according to the trailer.
Sydnee Pendergrass, a junior art major, used to attend Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, and she helped to film potential parts of the film with her friend.
When her friend was a senior in high school, he was chosen to be a part of an art program, where he met Doug Blush, one of the editors of the film. Later, Blush contacted Pendergrass's friend and asked if he wanted to help with the film. He enlisted Pendergrass to help him do interviews.
They went around campus for a few days toward the end of the school year and approached people, asking them how they felt about sexual assault on SCAD’s campus.
“It was pretty interesting how many people didn’t know about it and didn’t find it a big deal,” Pendergrass said. “None of the locals ever heard anything about SCAD being on the news. Students were like ‘You hear about it on the news, but it’s not a big deal.’”
She said most of the men she talked to didn’t think sexual assault on campuses was a problem.
“The fact that it was eye opening for them was really cool to get them to know that, and to have a conversation about it,” Pendergrass said. “Letting the masses know that it is an issue and it needs to be talked about more was great.”
When Pendergrass and her friend got the conversation going, she said people would come up to them to tell their stories.
Because Pendergrass hasn’t had a chance to see the film yet – her first time will be on Wednesday with the rest of the university – she doesn’t know what parts of her work were used.
“A lot of our statistics went into it, I know that,” she said. “Hopefully some of our interviews did as well.”
The film premiered at South by Southwest, a set of film, interactive and music festivals, in mid-March this year.
Bailey Loughlin, a sophomore organizational communication major, said Step In. Speak Up. brought "The Hunting Ground" to campus because students had been talking about the film.
“We decided bringing this film would be a great opportunity to start the conversation about reporting on our campus,” Loughlin said.
Pendergrass said she was excited to see how much the film affects people on Ball State’s campus.
“I think it’s going to open a lot of eyes to people about the reality that it’s pretty common and it’s going to hit home with people who haven’t necessarily [been] affected, or maybe those who it has affected but they didn’t have courage to do anything,” she said. “Hopefully it’s going to open people’s eyes to make them see they can do something about it and they can be there for people and that it is a problem that needs to be stopped.”
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