Hurt

Initiated by BIG hART, a non profit organisation which pilots art projects for marginalised young people, this film allowed rural Australian youth to translate stories based on their personal experiences of familial violence onto film. Made as part of a violence prevention strategy funded by the New South Wales government it was shot on location in several central New South Wales towns where young people participated in workshops to develop narrative material for the project. As well as shaping narratives, they operated film equipment, art directed and acted in the film. While it is based on real events, the film is not a documentary, but a creative dramatisation which employs innovative editing and visual effects to convey the participants painful feelings and experiences of domestic violence and social dislocation.