Summary of Boys and Men Healing
Boys and Men Healing is a documentary portraying courageous male survivors of childhood sexual abuse and incest in the process of recovery and healing from the devastating effects of this insidious crime. By portraying the intimate lives of men and teenage boys in recovery, our documentary will be a powerful witness to the possibilities and hope for victims, those who are speaking out and ending the cycle of self-abuse, crime, and a life filled with turmoil and shame. However arduous the healing process, Boys and Men Healing will show that males can heal, speak out and overcome social stigmas related to sexual abuse, while leading fulfilling lives. Boys and Men Healing will inspire others to begin their own healing process, while promoting a societal shift from cycles of abuse to cycles of healing, and most importantly, is a bold voice revealing a secret crime that effects our families, communities, and nation.
Our sensitive approach to filmmaking profiles people from diverse communities telling their stories. The drama is natural, and the stories are gripping; secrets are revealed, and truth, healing and hope unfold within the documentary. We feel our success with our earlier film, The Healing Years, comes from handling this difficult subject of child sexual abuse with honesty and intimacy, allowing the survivors to speak not only about the abuse, but also of the hope. This approach has proven to evoke emotion and empathy, while educating the viewer in a profound way. For this reason, our projects stand out as being notable documentaries on child sexual abuse. We plan the same kind of approach with Boys and Men Healing.
Through personal stories of boys, adolescents and men in a healing process, including those in counseling groups, speaking out publically, fervently advocating legal action against the sexual abuse of boys, confronting their perpetrators, and actively taking charge of their lives, by refusing to be victims, we will inspire those males living with the secret of incest and child abuse to speak out, seek help and begin ending generational cycles of abuse in society and their families, while breaking the cycle in their lives.
Our camera brings the viewer into the intimate feelings and lives of men and boys in various stages of the arduous and painful work of recovery and healing. We juxtapose these stories including a male beginning recovery, another who is rising from shame and secrecy, and yet another who can represent hope, and be a voice to those still hiding in silence and darkness, who has emerged from a victim to a leader in his family, community and nation.
Content will address those who did and did not become perpetrators due to the sexual abuse in their childhood, and how healing impacts both. The damaging effects of incest and child molestationfrom post-traumatic stress, mental health issues, crime, and alcohol and drug abuse will be addressed extensively. Additionally, we will address the research behind recovery, the hopeful options available for healing. Incest, clergy abuse, and the abuse by an unknown perpetrator will be included. Our on camera participants will be from various socioeconomic backgrounds. We are researching an on-camera participant who is incarcerated, who recognizes that being sexually abused as a child set him in a way-ward directionand who is in a prison recovery program.
In each story, we will profile each individual's potential for leading a decent life before the abuse occurred--and after, how the effects of the abuse were devastatinguntil recovery started. These struggles and triumph will be shown as our cameras follow real life stories, capturing, sensitively, their emotional life and emerging empowerment through the necessary and arduous course of their recovery. Cameras will document therapy and counseling groups, confronting their perpetrators, revealing their secret, activism, and day-to-day struggles and successes.
Television news footage of clergy abuse will be used during appropriate segments. Interviews, intimate moments during time with supportive family members, revealing and heart-wrenching group counseling sessions, letters to perpetrators, and their work as activists illustrates their stories.
Police investigations, including tapes and computer tracking of pedophiles will reveal the underground work of our law enforcement. Home-film footage, and super-8 images are used to bring the viewer into childhood years. Since former Miss America and incest survivor, Marilyn Van Derbur was a successful mentor featured in our earlier film, we are pursuing featuring a high profile male who can speak openly about their abuse and healing, in order to help encourage boys to speak out.
The tension within each story will gradually reveal the impact of incest and child sexual abuse on their lives, and finally, their stories of triumph. The juxtaposition of their stories also highlights many personalities, lives, and diversities within the human spirit, as each struggles and triumphs in healing.
Through venues such as, television broadcasts, Internet, conferences, community screenings, film festivals, educational distribution, media relations, publicity, and collaboration with leading organizations such as S.N.A.P AND MaleSurvivor, and our co-distributors, including Safer Society, The National Coalition Against Sexual Abuse, FaithTrust Institute and Sidran Institute, and other survivor organizations, Boys and Men Healing will encourage active dialogue about the importance of healing and speaking out for sexually abused boys and men in order to end the cycle and its cumulative effects.
Boys and Men Healing is intended not only as a tool for broadcast, general public education, and a healing tool for professionals, it is also a documentary encouraging male survivors to speak out, and begin their journey of healing.