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Small towns love their high school football and will go to great lengths to protect the players they place on such high pedestals. Steubenville, Ohio, is no different. When a teenage girl is sexually assaulted at a pre-season football party in 2012, the town goes silent. In a case that garnered national attention, it took amateur crime blogger Alex Goddard’s uncovering of disturbing evidence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to spark a more thorough investigation, resulting in a wave of threats and cyberbullying directed at Goddard and, eventually, the conviction of two key offenders. With extensive access to archival footage, police interrogations and interviews with local townspeople, this turbulent documentary explores the complex motivations of both perpetrators and bystanders, unearthing the attitudes at the core of their behaviour and making a powerful statement on how deeply rooted rape culture can be. Heather Haynes
Silence Breakers program presented in partnership with OXFAM CANADA.