Alan Witt
Owen, S. (Director). (2026). Left Write Hook. EPF Media. 94 mins. Left Write Hook is a documentary film about a therapy program for adult survivors of child sexual abuse. The program consists of alternating reflective writing and boxing training. The documentary itself follows the women through their therapy sessions, and through some of the documentary filming process, interviews, and work on the book they all wrote around the first instance of the program. The documentary has no narrator, no overlaid soundtracks, just the voices of the women and their experiences. While those voices are often overlaid over visuals of their training or day to day activities, the voices are always at the center. This lends a lot of power to the documentary, and invites the viewers to experience part of the therapy alongside the subjects of the film. Left Write Hook can be a hard film to watch, as the raw emotion born of the participants’ harrowing experiences is on display. But at the same time, it is empowering to witness people building their strength and expressing themselves through their art. This is the essential appeal of the documentary: it shows a process of working through trauma in a way that doesn’t offer instant cures or false promises, but simply shows a pathway that entails hard work and treats people with compassion. From an educational standpoint, this film has a lot of potential for use in psychology classes for case studies of trauma and examples of therapy in action. There are also potential applications within women’s studies, sociology, biology, and the martial arts and physical education as an example of the potential that physical activity holds for healing. The show could be clipped, as the individual stories often focus on the full story of an individual that could be easily viewed within a class session. There is also a lot of potential for a full watch as homework, which would allow for evaluation of the program of therapy as a whole. This would also be an inspiring addition to any public library collection. Left Write Hook has won several awards, including: Distinguished Innovation in Creative Arts Award - Deans and Directors of Creative Art (DDCA) Best Documentary - Australian International Documentary Conference Audience Award - Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia