"Outstanding! Should be shown in every school in Britain" BiLLy CoNNoLLy
“Well and away the most wonderful thing last night, easily the equal of John Freeman’s classic Face to Face series, was Chosen (More4)...I started watching reluctantly at 10pm and was still riveted by midnight. It is not a film I would advise you watch before trying to sleep...The slow, clammy realisation of what was happening crept up on you like a hole in your sole.”
“If you really wanted to know what it feels like to have no control over your life, you needed to see Chosen, a brave documentary in which three middle aged men spoke in ghastly detail about being sexually abused by their teachers at Caldicott Prep school…A criminal case against Wright was stayed on the grounds that it all happened a long time ago. Not to these men it didn’t. It was brave of the documentary to name him. ”
“Brian Woods’ sad, involving documentary…left you feeling that no photograph can be trusted…Occasionally as the rostrum camera panned across a row of boys to close in on one face, you found yourself wondering how many other children there had secrets too …The alleged chief perpetrator never came to trial … but he got a kind of trial here and the verdict was damning.”
“A remarkable new documentary funded by the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation will paint a picture of Caldicott in the 1960s and early 1970s that will shock those who have only ever regarded it as an elite educational bastion in Buckinghamshire...”
“Recently I saw Chosen, a TV documentary about abuse in a boarding school [to be shown on More4, on September 30]. Victims were talking openly about being abused. That focused my mind on why I do my job.”
“The result is raw, emotional and intense beyond words. Moreover, Chosen isn’t just an exercise in misery voyeurism: everyone involved wants it to have a bigger impact.”
“This deft and powerful documentary by Brian Woods takes a compelling look at the widely acknowledged but largely underexplored area of sexual abuse in Britain’s boarding schools…But the bulk of the credit must go to the dignified, middle-aged interviewees, who recount their grooming, their abuse and the confusion, silence and pain that followed, with eloquence and honesty.”
“In one of the simplest, yet most gut-wrenchingly compelling documentaries in a long while, these brave and articulate middle-aged men recount their experience of sexual abuse…”
“A simply made, desperately sad film about the sexual abuse of boys by teachers in Britain’s private school system.”
“Acclaimed film-maker Briand Woods treats his three subjects with great sensitivity, allowing them to discuss their experiences of abuse, and their fight for justice.”
“The brilliant True Stories strand focuses on the harrowing and rarely aired subject of sexual abuse of pupils by teachers at private boys’ schools.”
“Speaking straight to camera, with an eloquence often lacking in mainstream coverage of paedophilia, they make an affecting case…The comedian, Billy Connolly, himself a victim of sexual abuse as a child, has said the film should be required viewing in schools across the country.”
“Is there, the victims wonder, an Establishment reluctance to acknowledge abuse in boarding schools?”
“There are some moments that you know will stay with you for the rest of your life.”