Film Forum

At a pre-season football party in small-town Steubenville, Ohio, a heinous crime took place: the assault of a teenage girl by members of the beloved high school football team. What transpired would garner national attention and result in the sentencing of two key offenders. But it was the disturbing social media evidence uncovered online by crime blogger Alexandria Goddard, and chronicled by Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Rachel Dissell, that provoked the most powerful questions about the case, and about the collusion of teen bystanders, teachers, parents, and coaches to protect the assailants and discredit the victim. Unfolding like a thriller, ROLL RED ROLL painstakingly reconstructs the night of the crime and its aftermath, and uncovers the ingrained rape culture at the heart of the incident — illuminating what can happen when teenage social media bullying runs rampant and adults blame the victim. “Essential viewing. Documents the case in such a powerful fashion that your feelings of outrage will persist long after the movie is over.” – Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

Presented with support from the Richard Brick, Geri Ashur, and Sara Bershtel Fund for Social Justice Documentaries.

USA    80 MINS.    TOGETHER FILMS

Reviews

“Critic’s Pick. Reveals a football-crazed culture of misogyny and entitlement. [Nancy Schwartzman] assembles these repugnant posts and videos... into a timeline of casual depravity. What emerges is an infuriating portrait of sports-mad solidarity and victim-blaming. A tough but essential watch.”
– Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

“The case, which brought global infamy on the town, is now revisited in a documentary… [one] that is all the more potently wrathful for being so restrained. At the core of the Steubenville story was a clash of the agelessly old and the dauntingly new. A moral stronghold that Hawthorne would have recognized, in which male dominance was suffered, feared, and largely tucked away, exploded into fragments. The film contains plenty to appall you afresh. ROLL RED ROLL feels raw and pressing.”
– Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

“Essential viewing. Documents the case in such a powerful fashion that your feelings of outrage will persist long after the movie is over.”
– Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

“Everybody needs to see it... it’ll stay with you forever.”
– Lena Wilson, Slate
 
“[Nancy] Schwartzman handles the subject matter with respect, grace, insight, and even hope. Through the lens of the Steubenville rape case, Roll Red Roll shows that society is finally beginning to take rape and rape culture seriously—and how far we still have to go.”
– Erika W. Smith, BUST Magazine