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'Hunting Ground' Release: Campus Sexual Assault Doc's Filmmakers Say They Want to Effect Change

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This weekend, the public will get its first look at "The Hunting Ground," the highly anticipated documentary on the campus sexual assault epidemic.

According to the Huffington Post, the film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival this past Jan. and reportedly left viewers overwhelmingly stunned. Radius-TWC, the documentary's distributor, moved the release date up to Friday, but only in two theaters: Los Angeles' Landmark and New York City's Angelika Theater.

The documentary's directors, Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, previously made a documentary about sexual assault in the military, titled "Invisible War." The two spoke to the HP ahead of the release of their new film, which they hope does more than bring awareness to campus sexual assault.

They want to effect actual change.

"Ideally, we'd love to see something happen that's somewhat similar to 'The Invisible War,' where the military actually saw that - and Kirby did it as a critique, not an attack - and started using it as a training tool, and reformed policy," Ziering said. "Having achieved that with one film, we aspire to that with this one. Obviously a transformation of public understanding of this issue and also a transformation of policy responses. Done."

One of the film's biggest reveals is the former female student at Florida State University who accused the school's former Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Jameis Winston of rape. Erica Kinsman has accused the school of favoring a star football recruit's playing eligibility over the investigation into whether or not he raped her.

The filmmakers talked about several topics including how the Obama Administration has responded, the University-of-Virginia-Rolling-Stone incident and how men can be sexually assaulted as well.

The film is set to air on CNN, though a firm date is not available. After its initial release Friday, "The Hunting Ground" will appear in more theaters in more major cities on both coasts in March and April.

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