Attiya Khan’s documentary A Better Man has a mission and that is to empower its audience to join the movement to END violence against women.
“I desperately want domestic violence to stop. Art, storytelling, and deep, painful conversations are an integral part of the solution. By getting closer to the truth of what survivors experience, and of why men choose to use violence, we can help stop the violence.
A Better Man documents a personal experiment for me and my abusive ex-partner, a step towards healing, understanding, and accountability. My hope is that our story will motivate others to find new, creative solutions to a problem that continues to be a global epidemic.”
– Attiya Khan, Co-Director
Khan wants to go to the source of the problem in order to find a deeper understanding as to why violent behaviour happens in the first place. After the writer-director bumped into her abuser twenty years after the abuse, she wondered if finding answers within him could mean a more profound contribution to ending domestic violence. Gaining a deeper understanding of why an abuser abuses tackles the origin of the problem versus simply bringing awareness to the issue. We can teach our daughters how to run and be strong like Khan was, but equipped with a better understanding of why boys turns into abusers, real collective change becomes possible. A Better Man will highlight efforts to end men’s violence against women that focus on helping men who have used violence.
“The man who abused me when we were teenagers is now taking responsibility for his actions. One of the things he said was, ‘Attiya, I wish I could have been a better man.’ I’m making this documentary because I believe he, and people like him, can change, and I want to create a space for that to happen. I see our conversation as a starting point to advance the movement to end violence against women.”
– Attiya Khan, Director
Free Yourself Global
At Transcendent Media Capital, we are a global media production company invested in effectuating social change. We partner with NGO’s, enterprises and filmmakers worldwide to create social or ecological products and campaigns that make a real and sustainable change for global issues. Like Khan, we also strongly believe that art, storytelling, and deep, painful conversations are an integral part of the solution. One of our current main projects is Free Yourself Global through which we utilize our story telling capabilities and media assets to tell stories, whether fiction or non-fiction, about domestic violence with the intent to educate, challenge established myths and improve that situation globally. This campaign, “Free Yourself Global: Healing Families; Ending Domestic Violence”, is the first interactive global domestic violence campaign incorporating social media, web and podcast series, short films, feature film, a photo book and music benefit concerts. We are also building a fully animated and interactive digital platform to assist in transforming domestic violence worldwide. This campaign explores the enculturation of violence through families across the globe, and how does one, whether the abuser or the abused, interrupt the pattern of violence? Our initiative hopes to bring together all of the voices of the participants of domestic violence, so whether you are a recovering abuser, victim/survivor and/or professional who works to aid in this cause, we want to hear your story. You can share it with us on social media using the hashtag #FreeYourselfGlobal or anonymously here, via our website.
Watch the new trailer for A Better Man, which will have its world premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
https://www.facebook.com/ABetterManFilm/videos/1433322673406467/