heralding:

The trailer for documentary The Invisible War, showing at Sundance Film Festival this week.

The film focuses on the hushed-up issue of rape (of both men and women) in the US military, and features interviews with some of the victims of this insidious crime. The trailer includes the appalling fact that women in the military are more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted by a colleague than to be killed by enemy fire.

Its director, Kirby Dick, was nominated for an Oscar for Twist of Faith, another documentary following a man coming to terms with the abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of a Catholic priest. However, he says that the interviews he carried out for The Invisible War were some of the hardest he’s ever had to do, calling them “the most intense series of interviews I have ever been involved with”, and admitting that he and his producer cried at “almost every interview”.

Early reviews have praised the film for its brave and eloquent subjects, who are prepared to tell their harrowing stories in order to shed a very necessary light on this very real problem.