This year, the Southern Documentary Fund’s In-the-Works will screen excerpts from Private Violence with filmmakers Rebecca Cerese, Kit Gruelle, and Cynthia Hill. Behind the closed curtains of homes across America, countless individuals live under the terrifying threat of domestic violence. The very term belies the far-reaching effects that reverberate throughout our society as a consequence of this “private violence.” To help draw back the curtain on this national plague, three North Carolina-based production companies have joined forces to produce a multi-media documentary and educational project entitled Private Violence that explores the complex issue of domestic violence in America and examines the social movement that has pushed back against this crime for decades. Creation of the documentary film Private Violence culminates more than eight years of research and development that includes conversations with many of the leading figures in the field and personal stories of survivors, abusers, and family members who have both won and lost battles against domestic violence. Woven throughout these stories of danger and survival, fatal indifference and courageous intervention, is the history of a social movement created over the past two hundred years. With the support and participation of such luminaries as former Vice President Joe Biden and feminist icons Gloria Steinem and Ann Jones, Private Violence presents an authentic chronicle of the Battered Women’s Movement, its successes and failures, and what still needs to be done today to end violence against women and children.