Roll Red Roll at MIT
Directed by Nancy Schwartzman
Thursday March 7th, 6:30pm*
MIT Bartos Theater
At a 2012 pre-season high school football party in Steubenville, Ohio, a young woman is raped. The aftermath exposes an entire culture of complicity and the roles that peer pressure, denial, sports machismo, and social media played in the tragedy.
Film followed by Q&A with director Nancy Schwartzman
*pizza served at 6:30pm, film start time 7pm
This documentary is a true-crime thriller that goes behind the headlines to uncover the deep-seated and social media-fueled “boys will be boys” culture at the root of high school sexual assault in America. Roll Red Roll tells the story of the beloved Steubenville, Ohio football team and how a blogger uncovered the disturbing social media evidence of the assault of a teenage girl by members of the team.
Nancy Schwartzman is a documentary film director, producer, and media strategist who uses storytelling and technology to create safer communities for women and girls. Roll Red Roll goes beyond the headlines of the notorious Steubenville, Ohio high school sexual assault case to uncover the social-media fueled “boys will be boys” culture that let it happen. Roll Red Roll premiered in 2018 at the Tribeca Film Festival, and Hot Docs, and is currently playing at over 20 festivals, and will have a robust impact campaign. She is the recent winner of the Adrienne Shelly Foundation’s Excellence in Filmmaking Award. Roll Red Roll is her feature film debut. Her first film, The Line, a short documentary examining consent was used by the White House for a campaign around sexuality, and her follow-up film XOXOSMS, was on PBS/POV and BBC exploring love between two teenagers, bridged by technology.
A globally recognized human rights activist, Nancy serves on Vice President Biden’s Advisory Council for Violence Against Women. Nancy is a tech founder, and created the White House award-winning mobile app Circle of 6 designed to reduce sexual violence among America’s youth and college students. Circle of 6 is used by over 350,000 people in 36 countries. The app is now open source and being adapted for women journalists working in Mexico. She has presented her work at the White House, the United Nations, TEDxSheffield, Good Pitch, DOCNYC and more.