When We Were Bullies

Odyssey

2023

Six California kids test their brains and talents against students in Odyssey of the Mind, a problem-solving competition requiring mechanical, creative and intellectual skills. With little money and zero adult participation, the teens build a robot to tell a story about bullying, exclusion and mental health. But how does their solution measure up?

Tales of Ordinary Fatphobia

2020

What is fatphobia and what can be done to overcome it? With poetic illustrations and painful, compelling testimony, Tales of Ordinary Fatphobia offers multiple examples of the psychological effects of weight-based discrimination and bullying on adolescent girls.

Tickled

2016

Journalist David Farrier stumbles upon a mysterious tickling competition online. As he delves deeper he comes up against fierce resistance, but that doesn’t stop him getting to the bottom of a story stranger than fiction.

Star Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows

2022

Ghyslain Raza, better known as the “Star Wars Kid,” breaks his silence to reflect on our hunger for content and the right to be forgotten in the digital age.

Beware the Slenderman

2016

In this horrifyingly modern fairytale lurks an online Boogeyman and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. The entrance to the internet quickly leads to its darkest basement. How responsible are our children for what they find there?

Pekka. Inside the Mind of a School Shooter

2015

On November 7 2007, eighteen year old Pekka goes to school armed in Jokela, a quiet town North of Finland’s capital, Helsinki. On that tragic day, he kills eight people. The director reconstructs Pekka’s story through conversations with his parents, classmates and teachers. The oppressive circumstances that brought on the young man’s tragic action are slowly revealed clearer and clearer and the spectator realizes that these situations are not unique to Pekka from Jokela.

Welcome to Class 6

2019

Endless bullying - Daan's story

2023

This moving documentary tells the story of Daan, a cheerful and talented boy who left life at the age of sixteen after a school career in which he was systematically excluded. Former classmates organize a reunion to investigate how things got to this point. They discover that many other students also felt unsafe in the classroom. Meanwhile, Daan's sister Julia, who, like Daan, loves theater, is working on her self-confidence. And Daan's group of friends, where he could finally be himself, looks back on the time they spent with him.

Coos and the Coke Bottle

2024

25 years ago, when Coos, then 13, was smoking dope with his friends by the side of a canal, he passed out and came to with a Coke bottle up his ass. A joke by his friends. The incident marks his life as it haunts him for years. Why did his friends do that? Coos, now 38, wants to be able to turn this black page in his history, and he does so by confronting his friends of the time with his pain.

The Student Body

2016

When a brave high school student takes a stand against state-mandated BMI tests of her peers, she finds herself in the middle of a heated national controversy, sparking a battle of wills between herself and government officials.

Sticks and Stones

2001

This short documentary features children aged 5 to 12 talking about their experiences with bullying and discrimination because they or their families do not fit into traditional gender and family roles. This film explores the contemporary diversity of families from kids' points of view, while featuring short animated sequences about the history of derogatory slang.

Telling Schoolgirl Tales: The Making of 'The Getting of Wisdom’

2006

First there was ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’, then ‘My Brilliant Career’, and now best of all ‘The Getting of Wisdom’. It is incomparably moving and powerful.

Power Pack - Take a Stand: Prevention of Bullying, Conflict Among Peers and Violence

2003

A parent training video on how to de-escalate bullying and interpersonal conflict in a school setting, taught by Dr. Sherryll Kraizer.

American Reflexxx

2015

American Reflexxx is a short film documenting a social experiment that took place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Alli Coates filmed performance artist Signe Pierce as she strutted down a busy oceanside street in stripper garb and a reflective mask. The pair agreed not to communicate until the experiment was completed, but never anticipated the horror that would unfold in under an hour. The result is a heart wrenching technicolor spectacle that raises questions about gender stereotypes, mob mentality, and violence in America.

Motherland

2023

Svetlana has lost her son who was found dead while he was in the army. As she tries to shed light on the culture of violence and abuse in the Belarusian military, a group of young friends from the techno underground soon face being drafted themselves. They go to rave parties in undershirts and round sunglasses, but in a moment the party could be over – at least until huge protests break out in the streets following the recent ‘re-election’ of dictator-president and Putin sympathiser, Aleksandr Lukashenko. A glimmer of hope and a promise of change, which only causes the brutality of the authoritarian society to erupt in full force.