This year, over 5 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. The Bully Project is the first feature documentary film to show how we've all been affected by bullying, whether we've been victims, perpetrators or stood silent witness. The world we inhabit as adults begins on the playground. The Bully Project opens on the first day of school. For the more than 5 million kids who'll be bullied this year in the United States, it's a day filled with more anxiety and foreboding than excitement. As the sun rises and school busses across the country overflow with backpacks, brass instruments and the rambunctious sounds of raging hormones, this is a ride into the unknown.
Direction
Hirsch spent a year embedded, capturing unguarded moments.
Editing
The bus scene — you'll know it — is unbearably intimate.
Director
Lee Hirsch
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The R-rating controversy sparked a Change.org petition with 500,000 signatures and forced the MPAA to reconsider its entire rating system for documentaries.
Alex Libby's mother didn't know the extent of his suffering until she saw the footage; the documentary itself became her first warning. She later became an anti-bullying advocate.
US
