Audrie & Daisy

2016 American film

2 min read

Audrie & Daisy is a 2016 American documentary film about two cases of rape of teenage girls, in 2011 and 2012.

Summary

The documentary includes the stories of two American high school students, Audrie Pott of Saratoga, California, and Daisy Coleman of Maryville, Missouri, who were each victims of separate sexual assaults. At the time of their respective assaults, Pott was 15 and Coleman was 14 years old. After the assaults, the victims and their families were subjected to abuse and cyberbullying.

The documentary follows their outcomes through time, social media, court documents, and police investigations. The film's directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, a husband-and-wife team who have teenage children of their own, had been fascinated by the role of social media in teenage lives and were attracted to the subject of the Daisy Coleman story as "a modern-day Scarlet Letter story". For over two years, the filmmakers filmed Daisy Coleman and members of her family as they faced both the trauma of Daisy's assault and the hostile reaction of their community. The film also features Maryville sheriff Darren White and Maryville mayor Jim Fall, with the sheriff saying: “Girls have as much culpability” in cases like Daisy's.

Audrie Pott died by suicide in 2012, nine days after the sexual assault. Daisy Coleman went on to co-found SafeBAE (Before Anyone Else), a non-profit organization aimed at ending sexual assaults in schools.

On August 4, 2020, Daisy Coleman also died by suicide after years of fighting depression and trauma. She was 23 years old. Four months later, Coleman's mother, Melinda, also died by suicide.

Release

Audrie & Daisy had its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2016. The film was purchased by Netflix for streaming, and was released on September 23, 2016.

Accolades

Cases

Rape and suicide of Audrie Pott of Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California (September 3, 2012)
Rape of 14-year-old Daisy Coleman and her 13-year-old friend Paige Parkhurst in Maryville, Missouri (January 8, 2012)
Rape of Delaney Henderson of St. Joseph High School (Santa Maria, California) (June 2011)