Metadata
Laura Sky
1999 |120 mins
Until Someone Listens is a documentary about women dealing with their experiences of institutional abuse while incarcerated at The Ontario Training School for Girls in Cambridge (then Galt), Ontario, Canada. The school opened in 1933, was renamed the Grandview Training School in 1967, and was closed in 1976.
“A lot of us had come from traumatic backgrounds. We had suffered sexual abuse and physical abuse in our home situations. But [they] didn’t punish the perpetrator; they punished the child…. Training school was about warehousing children that nobody else had an answer for.”
– Corina Hayward, member of the Grandview Survivors Support Group
Until Someone Listens enters the lives of a representative group of women from the Grandview Survivors Support Group and chronicles their experiences in the passage from trauma to recovery. Their contributions provide insight for those who have had similar experiences and for professional staff who work with abused women and children. The documentary’s purpose is to promote individual and collective healing and to increase community awareness of institutional abuse. As well, it challenges community stereotypes about abuse and recovery.
Each documentary chapter features a Grandview survivor whose experience reflects particular steps or a different point on the path towards healing. Although Grandview girls experienced similar sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, each has developed her own survival skills and has often shared her skills with others. Many benefit from the support of others – therapists, family, intimate friends, and partners. Others choose more solitary journeys.
Directed and Produced by Laura Sky
Cinematography: Jim Aquila CSC
Sound Recording: Ross Redfern, John Martin, Mark Obradovitch
Editing: Cameron Tingley
This title is included here with permission for personal viewing. It is also available for public screenings and educational acquisition through Vtape.org, a non-profit distribution resource for independent directors and artists. Contact: distribution@vtape.org
Until Someone Listens — A Film by Laura Sky from Laura Sky on Vimeo.