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In small-town Steubenville, Ohio, a sexual assault at a high school football party became national news, leading to the sentencing of two key offenders and leaving the American town changed forever.

Synopsis

Is this football town putting their daughters at risk by protecting their sons?”
- Rachel Dissell, film subject, Roll Red Roll

In small-town Steubenville, Ohio, a sexual assault at a high school football party became national news, leading to the sentencing of two key offenders and leaving the American town changed forever. Roll Red Roll goes behind the headlines and unpacks the factors that led to this attack and shaped its aftermath – from peer pressure, victim blaming and deeply engrained “boys will be boys” attitudes, to widespread cover-ups by members of the community. When a local blogger begins to sift through the social media profiles of those who attended the party uncovering mountains of evidence - the community is forced to accept disturbing truths about their children and about themselves. This true-crime thriller cuts to the heart of global debates around rape culture and unflinchingly asks: “Why didn’t anyone stop it?”

Roll Red Roll demonstrates this larger context of misogyny and normalization of gender-based violence that’s really hard to capture without being exploitative of the victim.”
– Amanda Klasing, Senior Researcher, Women’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch

Credits

Nancy Schwartzman

Director