INTERVIEW: KIRBY DICK AND AMY ZIERING

Kori and Rob Cioca in The Invisible War.

Power, rape and denials

By John Esther

A film destined to spur and stir up a national debate, writer-director Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War uncovers the perpetual cover up of women (and men) who are raped while serving in the United States Armed Forces.

A epidemic run amok, while it is estimated that 80 percent of sexual assaults remain unreported, the Department of Defense knows that twenty percent of all servicewomen have been assaulted while serving (an estimated 500,000 women have been sexually assaulted in the US military), and women who have been raped in the military have a PTSD rate higher than men in combat.

Rather than adequately address the issue, the military’s response is a tragedy, if not a flat out farce. They often blame the victim, dismiss or threaten her if she brings charges. Prosecution rates for sexual predators are abysmal. Defendants may resign in lieu of a court martial and educational tools often put the burden on women to make efforts to avoid victimization.

Providing proof in the pictures, Kirby and producer Amy Ziering interviewed about 150 victims before narrowing it down to eight women who are still searching for love, peace and justice years later after being raped.

No stranger to controversy when it comes to power, violence, sex and betrayal in highly regarded American institutions, Dick exposed the systemic cover-up of pedophilia in Twist of Faith (2004), the ethical vacancies within the MPAA in This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006) and homophobia and politicians hiding inside the proverbial closet in Outrage (2009).

Headed for my Top Ten of the Year List, I spoke with Oscar-nominated Dick and Ziering in Park City, Utah, during Sundance Film Festival 2012.

JEsther Entertainment: Why did you want to make this documentary?

Kirby Dick: Each one of these women’s stories is a documentary in itself. It’s an incredible injustice that I’ve just never encountered, really, in any of the filmmaking I’ve done. Every time we walked out of a shoot with one of these women we were really saddened, but we were both equally enraged, at least I was. I think maybe having a daughter makes it that more enraging. Rage was really driving a lot of this.
Amy Ziering: I say that Kirby came from anger whereas I came from emotion.

JE: Why do you think the level of injustice is greater than some of the victims want to admit?
KD: It must be an injustice for them. There wasn’t even a justice system. These people went in there with such idealistic reasons. That was true of everybody we talked to. Some had family going back to the Revolutionary War and they were just really looking forward to making a career of serving her country. And then they were devastated. It was interesting because I hadn’t had that many interactions with people in the military and I think I gained an incredible respect for their motivation and actually their accomplishments in the military.

JE: Did you try to get in touch with any of the alleged assailants?
KD: We did. Part of the reason we didn’t put it in the film was because of legal reasons. Part of the problem is these people are sometimes not even charged, or if they’re charged they are not convicted, so you have legal reasons and legal issues as to what you can put in the film. For me, the issue wasn’t these five or six individuals who had raped our subjects; it’s really the five or six individuals at the top of the power structure because it’s systemic. And those individuals are like the four Chiefs of Staff of each branch of service, The Secretary of Defense, the President; the people who are responsible for the system breaking down in the way that it has. That is what we’re really targeting. I didn’t want people to feel vindicated or, perhaps, feel like the problem was solved because we had either named these people or somehow brought them to justice. I really wanted to convey that it’s really a corrupt, systemic problem.

JE: Considering the long term damage this could do – such as none of these women want their children to serve in the military -- why do you think the military has not only grossly covered it up, but also has been so grossly incompetent at covering it up when they are confronted?
KD: It’s an incredibly hierarchical system, so nobody is going to take any responsibility; this has to come from the top. Even the two star generals were saying that they could run their own department, but it really has to come from much higher up the chain of command. Amy asked Major General Mary Kay Ann Hertog, who was a few months into her tenure, “Have you ever sat down with any of the survivors and talked with them one on one?” And she said, “No.” Until you talk with the victims you don’t know the extent of the psychological damage and the extent of the problem. Once you talk to them, you start hearing the intricacy of the injustice and the same type of injustice over and over again. I just don’t think they have a clue, at least not at that level. The military as a whole knows it a problem. It’s just business as usual: women in the military get raped and that’s just the way it is. Then the wars came along and they just decided not to deal with it, which was a mistake. It’s like the gay translators. They were losing great military translators because of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Women in general are higher achieving, because they have to be in this most patriarchal system. So for these women who have the courage to come forward are often times the strongest and the people who most believe in the system. They most want a very just and efficient military and those are the people who are getting pushed out by the hundreds of thousands.

JE: The military doesn’t trust any of the female advocates because they identify too much with the victims, but then they use females as the “face” of these issues.
KD: Right. In the case of Myla Haider, she was an investigator who was raped by her commander. And he had raped four other female investigators. And so everyone assumes that at the trials, the perpetrator is going down.

          Jerry and Hannah Sewell in The Invisible War.

JE: In past films, films of yours have had a positive social effect. This Film is Not Rated brought on change in the MPAA, certainly not to the degree that we would have like to have seen it, but did you see this documentary as having some kind of effect?
KD:  They said they were making those changes, but as far as I know I’m not aware of any important changes whatsoever.
AZ: But we see this differently. I am very hopeful that this will bring about change. We use the analogy of the Catholic Church. For so long nobody believed us, it was very hard to prove that abuse happened one on one. It was just anecdotal. It was just one or two priests. It was just comedians making jokes, and then all of a sudden when The Boston Globe broke the story. The whole public consciousness was, “Oh my god, this is a systemic epidemic. It’s not just a few isolated incidences. This is huge and covered up repeatedly.” As we show in our film, a lot of the reaction is, “Oh it’s just a few bad eggs, or it’s seen as a scandal,” as opposed to a systemic problem. This film absolutely makes it an unsalable argument. It’s not just a few isolated incidents; it is happening and happening consistently. Once that awareness shifts, there will be pressure. It’s clearly articulated. It is the top that needs to understand this problem and they don’t. We’re hopeful that if we get it to the right people it is going to be a no-brainer for them. It’s a win-win. If they take care of this, they have a stronger military. They just haven’t seen that or connected the dots yet.
KD: These people have come up in this tradition. The military, for the most part is a huge institution that is slow to change. But when they do decide to change, like with racism in the 60’s, they can do it. They had African Americans coming in and the military could see that they were becoming a very significant part of the fighting force. And they could see how it was going to rip the military apart unless they put in policies that really said, basically, there was going to be as close to zero tolerance as they could get. They did it over about a ten-year period. The racism went from being much worse in the military, versus civilian society, to being much better in the military. So they can do the same thing here. It’s like the Catholic Church and the diocese where a bishop comes out and says; “We really have a problem. We’re apologizing to the victims and we’re going to make sure they get compensated. We’re going to have oversight.” Then things change. But the military is a long way from that right now. Even U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta -- who on Wednesday, in sort of a preemptive strike, if you will, just two days before the premiere of the film -- said that, “We are very concerned. We have zero tolerance.” He reiterated some of the changes they already made. It almost looked like he was distracted. Somebody’s got to be passionate at the top and say, “This is it.”

JE: Looking at your recent films such as Outrage, Twist of Faith and This Film is Not Yet Rated,” why do you keep dealing with films addressing power, sex, corruption and lies?
KD: It’s the dynamic that adds a level of complexity. I made a lot of films that were sort of sick and other films that were sort of psychological profiles and sort of the examinations of individuals. Adding this political level to it adds a level of complexity. It got to a point where I knew I could make a good film and when you add not only the objective of making the film, but the objective of exposing something, of going after something, it makes the project more challenging, but it also makes it more interesting. I remember with Outrage, I’d been working on it for a year and I said to myself “You know, I have to make a movie here. It’s not all investigations.”

JE: Do you see a lot of correlation between the church and the military?
KD:  There is an arrogance and presumption on both parts that they have control over you. Obviously rape is a crime regarding power. It’s very similar too, between the Catholic Church and the military because in the Catholic Church you had serial rapists being moved around and protected by bishops and in the military you have serial rapists being moved around, again, and in some cases protected by, commanders. There is a real similarity there.

JE: Do you think some of the problem lies in the power structure in and of itself?
KD: Yeah. I’m sure a lot of the problem is there. This film is not taking issue with the nature of the power structure in the military, per se. In times of war it seems somewhat obvious that you need absolute types of command. But when it comes to justice and when it comes to conflict of interest, that’s when we’re saying you would have to move that part out of it.
AZ: Just as a social dynamic, you can’t avoid power structures.

JE: What do you think about these kinds of interviews? Do you think that you should speak for the work or that the work should just speak for itself?
KD: I’m not a purist. I’m not a purist at all. I think you can see a film in any form – from an iPhone to the big screen. It should exist in all manifestations. You should see part of it. You can walk in. You can walk out. In my mind there is no purity to the film experience. The discussion is all part of a larger part of that, whatever that discussion in. And with this film in particular, it is all about generating a discussion around this issue. Hopefully out of that discussion becomes action.

JE: Has it generated any negative discussions in any of the Q&As that you’ve had?
KD: None, which is interesting. Nobody has stood up and said, “I’ve been in the military for twenty years and I’ve proudly served and I bombed Iraq, and I object to this.” The film comes off as somewhat pro-military because these are people who believe in it. All the subjects believe in it. At Sundance you don’t get many pro-military films and this is one.
AZ: Out of independent filmmakers, not just out of Sundance.
KD: It’s taking the military as something that can be positive. We don’t want to alienate so many people who have served, especially people who have gone to war and risked their lives and who have lived in these hellish situations. And whether they were raped or weren’t raped, they have huge problems coming home. These are the people who we want to rally around the film. They know that these problems exist. If you’re in the military you know it’s no secret.