Moving On
1986 · 28m · Canada
Directed by Tina Horne
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative
London, Ontario's coordinated response to domestic violence — involving police, lawyers, doctors, transition houses, and a therapy program for men who batter — is presented as a model for breaking the cycle.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A 1986 doc that actually believes in institutional solutions and systems change? Contrarian as hell in 2024, but Horne's refusal to exploit trauma or perform outrage is almost radical for the form—it's boring in the best way, which means it's doing something I don't see coming.
Horne's model-system presentation sits in a precise lineage of institutional documentary—rigorous, observational, structured to reveal process rather than emotion—and that formal discipline is exactly what makes the argument about coordinated response feel earned rather than imposed.
The real choice here is Horne's decision to let the system itself become the subject, letting jurisdictional coordination and protocol design carry the emotional weight instead of individual stories—a structural gamble that transforms what could've been a PSA into something genuinely architectural.