‘Audrie and Daisy’ — a documentary for change — will be on Netflix

A victim of a sexual assault perpetrated by 21-year-old Matthew Barnett, 18-year-old Daisy Coleman from Albany, Mo., had nearly lost everything January 2012. Due to the case, her mom, Melinda had lost her job. In addition, her house in Maryville mysteriously burned down. She was kicked off the cheerleading team, “bullied incessantly” and urged to kill herself, which she attempted multiple times, according to Democracy Now!.

While Coleman desperately tried to piece together her life, Barnett was sentenced to two years probation, 100 hours of community service and $1,800 restitution to Daisy’s family.

Now, several years after the case, Coleman said that she is now “happier and healthier than ever,” according to ABC news.

In the fall of 2012, and nearly 2,000 miles away, the Saratoga community mourned the loss of SHS sophomore Audrie Pott, also the victim of a sexual assault by boys she had considered to be her friends at a drunken party in a Saratoga home.

The two girls never knew each other, yet their similar stories connect in the new 95-minute documentary “Audrie and Daisy,” produced by Actual Films, a San Francisco-based film company. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 25, and is set to be on Netflix this summer.

For two years, the husband and wife director team of Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen visited both Saratoga High School and Maryville R-II High School, Coleman’s school, to film the documentary, getting perspectives about the situation by talking to the parents, friends, authorities, some of those who committed the assaults and Coleman herself, who graduated from Albany High School in 2015. Several Saratoga alumni including Amanda Le, Adrienne Kim, Allison Chan and Guita Pardis were featured in the documentary as well.

The film additionally includes footage of the Maryville and Saratoga perpetrators who committed the assaults. The boys who were involved in Pott’s case were legally obligated to grant interviews to the documentary by the terms stated in their agreement in the civil lawsuit brought by the Pott family. However, under the terms of the agreement, their identities were not revealed.

Both Cohen and Shenk recognize that their subject matter is controversial, but they hope that by acknowledging the tension that exists between the accused and victimized, their film will provide an objective view of the situations.

“Our goal is to step outside [the tension] and really try to see the perspective[s] of all parties involved,” Shenk said. “I think any human being would agree that we want to avoid people getting hurt, we want to avoid misunderstandings, we want to avoid people feeling regret about behavior.”

Principal Paul Robinson said that after Pott’s suicide, the school and the community have done a good job coming together and learning from it. In particular, they have established more support systems on campus.

Others who were close to Pott said they still keep her close to their hearts.

“[The tragedy] made me act more compassionately towards others,” said Le, a class of 2015 graduate and a close friend of Pott who now attends West Valley College. “I still think about her fairly often, but I like to stay positive and remember that her story has helped and is continuing to help so many others going through similar situations. She inspires me to help as many people as I can, and knowing her has helped me understand others and the struggles they could be facing.”

Through the documentary, Shenk and Cohen hope viewers see the healing process and the positive change and learning that have occurred in the communities instead of just the tragedy. In fact, the two directors were inspired to create “Audrie and Daisy” as they realized how much ignorant they were about issues dealing with social media and teenagers in the current generation.  

“As parents, we realized that kids are growing up in such a different environment than we grew up in,” Shenk said. “There is a whole new world out there and for the most part, parents and teachers don’t really necessarily even know how to have conversations with their child about these things.”

Cohen and Shenk said they hope their film will be shown in schools and community groups, providing a framework for conversations about the risks of social media and reality of sexual assault.

“When you talk about [these situations], bring things out in the open and have learning moments from these situations, there can be really positive change and people can be proactive about how they go about these things in the future,” Shenk said.