SYNOPSIS
ROMEO documents one man's work to rehabilitate men convicted of domestic assaults.
The goal of ROMEO is to plainly address violence against women so these men can seek treatment and survivors can seek validation and refuge from abusive situations. ROMEO checks current sociocultural norms as well as the community pulse around this destructive social issue. Looking at the people in this [Boston] neighborhood will inform us all.
SOCIAL ISSUE
Batterer intervention programs struggle to keep their doors open as state funding is cut annually. Of the roughly $7 million budgeted by the state of Massachusetts for "domestic violence services" in 2005, only 10% is allocated to batterer intervention. Batterer intervention may be the only hope at rehabilitation for violent men since no other programs exist to address their behavior. Currently, there are no mandatory programs in prison to treat men who are convicted of domestic assaults.
FILM TREATMENT
As a group leader for one of the first batterer intervention agencies in Boston, Antonio's responsibility is to treat men who are arrested for domestic assaults. Contrary to agency rhetoric, Antonio refuses to label them "batterers," his belief that as long as the men accept the label, the women in their lives remain in danger. And so he meets them after group for coffee and invites them to his house for Haitian soup on New Year's Day, all agency no-nos. Antonio believes these men need ongoing treatment much like alcoholics need AA to remain sober, that the 40-week program isn't enough.
Aware he is treading on thin ice, Antonio knows there is a danger these relationships will be seen as collusion. However he considers the agencies' hands-off approach as ineffectual, graduating men from the program who come to group drunk or fall asleep during class. Antonio believes his only chance at persuading them to stop terrorizing their families is to reach them on a human level. He does this in spite of their brutal acts and for the sake of his three little girls.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
"Frankly, I was becoming increasingly distressed over the world-wide statistics on how many women were being beaten by the men in their lives. Almost as equally distressing was the focus on [these] women to solve the problem. I didn't want to go to survivors to explain their bruises, I wanted to ask their partners why they were inflicting them, and why they (the men) were choosing to stay in relationships that they claimed were provoking them to rage. I'm sending up ROMEO as a test balloon to see how ready we [as a society] are for change. "
CREW
Lorna Lowe
Ashaki Fenderson
Lucia Small
Andy McCarthy
Steve Bores
Lee Holloway
David Chin
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