Title | PLEASE ARREST ME |
Brand | RIT FOUNDATION |
Product / Service | GENDER EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS |
Category | A02. Fiction & Non-Fiction Film: 5-30 minutes |
Entrant | OGILVY SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE |
Idea Creation | OGILVY SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE |
PR | OGILVY SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE |
Production | KNIGHTS MEDIA & FILMS Mumbai, INDIA |
Production 2 | EDITMACHINE Gorizia, ITALY |
Production 3 | 1908 SCORING STUDIOS Los Angeles, USA |
Production 4 | CREAM DIRECTORS London, UNITED KINGDOM |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Nicolas Courant | Ogilvy Singapore | Chief Creative Officer |
Eugene Cheong | Ogilvy Singapore | Creative |
Guilherme Camargos | Ogilvy Singapore | Creative Director |
Aritra Dutta | Ogilvy Singapore | Associate Creative Director |
Jonathan Ollivier | Ogilvy Singapore | Associate Creative Director |
Alessandro Agnellini | Ogilvy Singapore | Associate Creative Director |
Vinicius Cunha | Ogilvy Singapore | Associate Creative Director |
Kevin Wijaya | Ogilvy Singapore | Senior Art Director |
Winona Wee | Ogilvy Singapore | Copywriter |
Alvin Chin | Ogilvy Singapore | Regional Head of Creative Services |
Amanda Devarajan | Ogilvy Singapore | Copywriter |
Xavier Mairesse | Knights Media & Films | Director |
Bijal Sunil Majithia | Knights Media & Films | Line Producer |
Lorenzo Colugnati | Knights Media & Films | Editor |
Sacha Chaban | 1908 Scoring Studios | Music Director |
Sameer Lukka | Knights Media & Films | Protagonist |
Sai Gunuranjan | Knights Media & Films | Director Of Photography |
Jaspreet Ranjan | Knights Media & Films | Editor |
Tarun Jain | Knights Media & Films | Producer |
Anirudh Dhanak | Knights Media & Films | Producer |
Rahul Dhir | Knights Media & Films | Producer |
Ritu Bhardwaj | Knights Media & Films | Researcher |
Nicolas Koon Lim | Hogarth Singapore | Editor |
Abdul Rahim | Hogarth Singapore | Producer |
In India, rape inside a marriage is not a crime. To fight the law, RIT Foundation needed to raise awareness. So we got an activist to turn himself in to the police, pretending he raped his wife. Within minutes, he was freed. We captured the whole process — from him interviewing lawyers, victims, and women on the street, to him going into the police station with hidden cameras and having authorities say that raping your wife is not a crime. The documentary triggered fierce reactions from supporters and naysayers and was awarded by film festivals and critics worldwide.
RIT Foundation is an Indian NGO fighting for women’s rights. One of their biggest challenges is marital rape in a country where it is legal to rape your wife. Despite stats saying 2 in 3 Indian wives are raped by their spouses, lawmakers don’t see the need to prioritise it. We need to create a campaign that raises awareness and sparks debate to pressure authorities to review rape laws.
To prove the absurdity of the law, we sent an activist to turn himself in to the police, pretending he raped his wife. We filmed the entire process — from preparation with lawyers and victims days before, to him being let go as innocent — exposing how police treat marital rape cases. We broke the story as a documentary online, sparking fierce debate on both sides.
In the short-term, we wanted to raise awareness by creating debate surrounding marital rape. Supporters and naysayers both had fierce reactions to the campaign and soon, survivors of marital rape in India started coming forward and sharing their stories privately with us. To aid them in recovery, we connected them with counsellors in their state. Our long-term goal was to generate enough conversation to pave the way for the Delhi High Court to criminalise marital rape in India, something we achieved when we secured a petition hearing date scheduled 27 March 2020.
We launched our campaign on online and social media on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. To maintain buzz, we latched on hashtags of news such as the 2019 Hyderabad gang rape and articles of marital rape acquittals in India. It previewed at our annual gala & launched on Intl Elimination of Violence against Women Day. It also screened at fests like Best Global Shorts, L'age D'or and Intl Film & Human Rights Fest Valencia.
Please Arrest Me made the headline news in India attracting many supporters, but also haters to our campaign for change. Soon, conservatives started flooding our social pages with messages of hate and ridicule, with thousands reporting and successfully taking down our content 4 times. Censorship didn’t shut the debate. Thankfully, the attention helped us gather supporters with bigger influence. To pressure the Delhi High Court, Indian feminist influencers & advocate groups pushed back by sharing our content & encouraging their followers to do the same. Through this, we received countless messages offering to help us out, with some even uploading our video on their own social channels. The conversation progressed and the patriarchal society of India was forced to deal with the issue. The case to change marital rape laws will be heard this year at the Delhi High Court, paving the way to criminalising marital rape nationwide.
Website URL | Social Media URL | Video URL