WARZONE previously at Film Forum

NO LONGER PLAYING

A statement by the filmmaker Maggie Hadleigh-West:
WAR ZONE has been the focus of my life for the past seven years. But I, like most other women, have lived with street abuse for a lifetime. This film is my way of taking back the streets, letting men know that it is not okay to treat me like a piece of meat, or to treat any other woman that way.
It's not that we don't recognize the genesis of this type of behavior. It's not that we don't understand the biological, sociological and economic underpinnings that create an environment which does nothing to discourage men from heckling, following, touching, or disparaging women on the streets. It's just that we don't like it, often feel threatened by it, and want it to stop. We live in a climate of aggression. And the underbelly of that aggression is rape. Rape is what all women fear when they believe that their safety is being threatened.

This is a film that I believe will speak to women in a very personal way. But it is also a film for men - men who understand that just because they know they can get away with street abuse, doesn't mean they have the right to do it. It's a film that will awaken men to the experience of women. A film that can ultimately participate in the liberation of men. Liberating them from antiquated ideas of masculinity and bring them into the millennium with a more genuine and individual definition of manhood. WAR ZONE makes it clear that there are implications to street abuse, and to participate is not only to disregard the thoughts and feelings of women, but to risk threatening our safety and to condone the aggression of strangers towards the women they love.

A List of Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women Sites

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