After premiering at Sundance earlier this year, a trailer and release date have dropped for Nancy Schwartzman’s latest doc Victim/Suspect. As with her previous effort Roll Red Roll, the subject of sexual assault—and the gross mishandling of these cases by police and the judicial system at large—is central to the film. Per the film’s official synopsis: Victim/Suspect chronicles journalist Rae de Leon’s investigation into a disturbing pattern: young women report sexual assault to the police but instead of the perpetrators being brought to justice, the women are arrested for filing a false report. Working for The Center for Investigative Reporting, de […]

Below, DP Jenni Morello discusses her work on Nancy Schwartzman’s Sundance-premiering Netflix documentary, Victim/Suspect, her follow-up to the doc Roll Red Roll. The film deals with alleged victims rape and sexual assault who find themselves on the other end of legal charges when they are accused of making false accusations. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here.  Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Morello: I met Nancy in early 2020 (pre-pandemic days) and honestly, I […]

Below, editors Inbal Lessner and Kim Roberts discuss their work on Nancy Schwartzman’s Sundance-premiering Netflix documentary, Victim/Suspect, her follow-up to the doc Roll Red Roll. The film deals with alleged victims rape and sexual assault who find themselves on the other end of legal charges when they are accused of making false accusations. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Lessner: Nancy Schwartzman and I crossed paths briefly when […]

Every production faces unexpected obstructions that require creative solutions and conceptual rethinking. What was an unforeseen obstacle, crisis, or simply unpredictable event you had to respond to, and how did this event impact or cause you to rethink your film? A few weeks into filming Victim/Suspect, my father died suddenly. My entire world crashed around me, and it felt like my soul had left my body. Thirteen days after my father’s death, I flew to location and filmed a key interview with one of our incredible participants. Through intimate vérité, we captured the legal defense team working on her case […]

Since Nancy Schwartzman’s filmography includes the short docs The Line, which explores sexual boundaries and consent, and xoxosms, a love story revolving around teens and tech, it’s obvious that the rape of a teenage girl by members of Ohio’s celebrated Steubenville High School football team back in 2012 would grab this director-producer-media-strategist’s attention. After all, the assault had been documented through Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and even cell phone recordings by the assailants, and it was subsequently brought to the world’s attention by a female crime blogger. Now, nearly seven years after the crime, Schwartzman takes a deeper look, revisiting […]

Of all the panels I attended at Doc NYC, the one called Protecting Yourself, on November 16, gave me the most hope for the future. The filmmakers were an impressive line-up of first-timers and veteran filmmakers, linked by their willingness to put themselves in dangerous situations in order to shine a light on stories otherwise cloaked in secrecy, denial and misinformation. The panel was moderated by Caty Borum Chattoo, Co-Director of the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University. At several points, the audience was asked not to tweet or do social media on certain statements. Some details […]