Premiere With Purpose: Silenced
Now in its third year, MIFF’s Premiere With Purpose is a night dedicated to celebrating extraordinary social-impact filmmaking and the power of cinema to spark change. It’s a reminder of why MIFF exists: to champion bold stories, elevate urgent issues, and create space for voices that need to be heard.
The evening will feature a post‑screening discussion with the film team.
7pm: Drink on arrival
7.45pm: Screening
9.15pm: Filmmaker Q&A
Limited tickets available.
Viewer Advice: Contains themes of sexual violence
Can’t attend the Premiere With Purpose? Click here to book a regular session of Silenced.
Jennifer Robinson, Amber Heard and Brittany Higgins have all experienced the full force of weaponised defamation laws – but these indomitable activists and survivors of gendered violence won’t keep quiet.
In 2017, #MeToo replaced the social stigma of discussing gendered violence with public solidarity and support for victim-survivors. The re-silencing was swift, vicious … and legalistic. Alleged perpetrators now used defamation lawsuits as cudgels to punish survivors for speaking out, and to deter journalists from exposing prominent people to public scrutiny. As a barrister who famously stood up for Amber Heard in a long-running, all-too-public defamation case in the UK, Jennifer Robinson has dedicated her career to fighting against these attacks, witnessing firsthand how such actions drag survivors through emotionally, professionally and financially ruinous legal proceedings.
In her incendiary exposé that premiered in Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition, Selina Miles (Martha: A Picture Story, MIFF 2019) gives voice to experts like Robinson and Sibongile Ndashe who – in their work as lawyers and activists – doggedly pursue procedural justice, as well as women like Higgins, Heard and Colombian journalist Catalina Ruiz-Navarro who’ve been the targets of or caught in defamation lawfare pursued by alleged perpetrators. This furious, urgent documentary indicts a misogynist status quo: as Ndashe says, “The law is designed not to believe women.”
“An essential, galvanising watch … [with] heartfelt interviews which convey the often-devastating emotional impact of telling the truth.” – Screen Daily
Writer/director Selina Miles is a guest of the festival and will be in attendance at all metropolitan sessions of the film.
Tickets
For information about the accessible services being offered at MIFF, please visit miff.com.au/access. If you require any access service, such as wheelchair/step-free access, for any MIFF session, please call 03 8660 4888 or email boxoffice@miff.com.au to book your ticket.
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