Guest Speaker: Lee
Hirsch
Award-Winning Director of Bully
As filmmaker Lee Hirsch sees it, America is at a tipping point.
He is not talking about politics, the economy, immigration, or wars
overseas. He is talking about bullying. Hirsch, a former victim of
bullying himself, started filming Bully
in the fall of 2009, shortly after two 11-year-old boys – one from
Massachusetts and one from Georgia – committed suicide following
prolonged harassment at school. He spent the rest of that academic
year in a handful of schools across the country, following five
students and families trying to understand how bullying is handled
within the schools. The result is a stark portrait of what bullying
looks like from the perspective of the victims.
This year, over 13 million American kids will be bullied at school,
online, on the bus, at home, through their cell phones and on the
streets of their towns, making it the most common form of violence
young people in this country experience. Hirsch hopes his exposure
will decrease those numbers and eventually eliminate them.
He engages audiences in “The Bully
Project,” a social action campaign to end bullying
that started as a result of the film. “The Bully Project”
highlights solutions that both address immediate needs and lead to
systemic change. Audiences will be moved, disturbed and infuriated
as they watch powerful and often gritty clips from the film, but
motivated to join Hirsch in his crusade to stop the violence.
CLICK HERE to RSVP for this event!!
Date: Tuesday, October 23rd,
2012
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: Little Theatre, Queens
Campus
More Information
James Salnave
salnavej@stjohns.edu