News

Acclaimed Doc Hazing Set For Two Festivals

After its highly successful national broadcast premiere on PBS, award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt’s riveting new documentary HAZING is now making its mark on the national festival circuit.

HAZING is set to screen at two festivals next week. First up, on Wed., March 7, the film will show at SXSW EDU, in Austin, TX, the educational arm of the famed South by Southwest Conference and Festival. Three days later, on Friday, March 10, HAZING will screen at the Hayti Heritage Film Festival, in Durham, NC, one of the longest-running Black, Southern film festivals in the nation. Hurt will appear at both screenings for a Q&A.

Next month, Hazing will also kick off its South Arts Southern Circuit Independent Film Tour. This tour connects US-based documentary filmmakers with communities throughout the South for screenings and conversations around important stories and the art of filmmaking. HAZING is one of only seven films selected for the 2022-2023 Southern Circuit Season.

HAZING also recently screened at the Chapel Hill Black Film Festival, the Pan African Film Festival in LA, and at Northeastern University.

HAZING takes a deeply personal look inside the culture, tradition, and secrecy of hazing rituals in fraternities and sororities, sports teams, marching bands, the military, and beyond. Drawing on a range of voices, including family members of young people who lost their lives to hazing, the film provides a nuanced and empathetic portrait of a culture that provides a sense of belonging even as it too often leads to violence, sexual degradation, binge drinking, institutional coverups, and debased notions of manhood.

Want to bring HAZING and Byron Hurt to your campus to ignite meaningful conversations about how to end the culture of hazing? Send us your info and we’ll get back to you with details!

If you’re an educator looking to use HAZING in your classes, you can get the film for educational use through MEF. HAZING will also be available to screen online through the Hayti Heritage Festival from March 6-7.

“HAZING should be required viewing by every high school and college student in the country. Violence within our fraternities, sororities, bands, and sports teams is not inevitable. But it takes a collective effort from organizations and members to solve the problem, and HAZING is the call to action we’ve needed to progress toward a solution.”
 — Lawrence Ross | Author, The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities

 

“HAZING is a powerful tool for Greek chapters, teams, and other organizations to frame why hazing cultures must change and how to begin those difficult conversations. Byron Hurt courageously shares his experiences and takes the viewer on a harrowing journey with hazing survivors and grieving families to examine the true cost of these brutal rituals.”
— Susie Bruce | Director, Gordie Center, University of Virginia

 

“HAZING directly confronts the hypocrisy of Greek-letter organizations that proclaim virtue, yet practice violence.  Watch HAZING to understand why one or the other will become either our hallmark or our headstone.”
— Dr. Matthew W. Hughey | Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut and co-author of A Pledge with Purpose: Black Sororities and Fraternities and the Fight for Equality

 

“Hurt is uniquely empathetic to those who fall victim to groupthink and extends this grace to the viewer. Taking a stark look at the psychological, societal, and historical components of hazing, Hurt sparks a captivating conversation around the anxieties and expectations of belonging—and what will be sacrificed to achieve it.”
— Shakira Refos | Tribeca Festival