Kirby Dick, the documentary filmmaker who shed light on the rampant sexual assaults in the U.S. military with his 2012 movie, The Invisible War, has a similarly themed and very timely doc premiering at Sundance this week and opening in theaters in March. The Hunting Ground looks closely at college campuses, where some studies indicate that 1 in 5 female students will be sexually assaulted—in most cases by a student peer.
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The new trailer demonstrates that Kirby and his team are taking aim at some of the country’s leading academic institutions, including Harvard and Notre Dame. And obviously the University of Virginia, which was rocked by scandal in November when a Rolling Stone article portrayed Thomas Jefferson’s hallowed university as a place where sexual predators escaped penalty or prosecution while victims were made into pariahs. Of course, that shocking story has come under enormous scrutiny, and the magazine backtracked when important facts were called into question.
It will be interesting how the Virginia story’s unraveling will impact The Hunting Ground, which based on its trailer, is not backing down from the perception that the university has a severe culture problem in its midst.
The Hunting Ground will open in theaters on March 20.
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