Summary: Filmmaker Kirby Dick discusses his most recent documentary, the Oscar-nominated THE INVISIBLE WAR. The film just won a Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Kirby Dick is an Academy- and Emmy Award-nominated documentary director. His most recent film, THE INVISIBLE WAR, is a groundbreaking investigation into the epidemic of rape in the U.S. military, won the Audience Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Released by Cinedigm/Documara, the film helped influence the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to announce some important policy changes. In 2009, Dick was nominated for an Emmy for Outrage (released by Magnolia Pictures) a searing indictment of the hypocrisy of powerful, closeted politicians and the political and media institutions that protect them. In 2006, he directed THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, released by IFC Films. A breakthrough investigation of the highly secretive MPAA film ratings system, the film compelled the MPAA to make long overdue changes in the way it rates films. Dick's prior film, TWIST OF FAITH, is the powerful story of a man confronting the trauma of his past sexual abuse by a Catholic priest. Produced for HBO, the film received a 2004 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Dick's other films include Derrida, a complex portrait of the world-renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida, which won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival, and the internationally acclaimed SICK: THE LIFE & DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival. SYNOPSIS: THE INVISIBLE WAR is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of our country's most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our US military. Profoundly moving, we meet characters who embraced their service with pride and professionalism, only to have their idealism crushed. Their chilling stories of violent sexual assault become even more rattling as they seek justice in a Kafkaesque military legal system. As a courageous few defy victimhood, they face their most challenging fight yet: penetrating a closed circuit where officers collude, cases are routinely swept under the rug, and few perpetrators are tried or convicted. Both a rallying cry for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who've been assaulted and a hopeful road map for change, THE INVISIBLE WAR is one of those rare films so powerful it has already helped change military policy. Demand Change: Tell the Department of Defense to better equip our troops to fight military sexual assault by using THE INVISIBLE WAR as a training tool. More ways to connect to Kirby's film and to the subject of sexual abuse in the military.
