A friend approached us about her 15-year-old daughter, who had been severely bullied. A girl at her school relentlessly taunted and teased her, isolating her from her other friends. They made up songs about her and spread rumours and lies using SMS and online messaging, making her life a complete misery. She would come home crying, angry and depressed, never knowing why she was the target of such cruelty.
With this story the inspiration for this film project, it is clear that bullying among teen girls is increasing and is happening at schools around the world every day. Using words rather than fists as weapons, incidents can be more subversive and psychologically damaging than those between boys.
The ability to mass communicate messages to friends and school colleagues through social networking sites, together with text messaging, has made psychological bullying more potent than ever.
Best Enemies portrays the reality that teenage girls face in a world very different from that of their parents and how scarring and destructive bullying, especially cyber bullying, is to its victims.
Teenagers, young adults, parents and teachers will strongly identify with this story and we believe the film can help to increase the awareness of cyber bullying, depression and the teenage girl ‘world’, by captivating and educating teenagers, parents and those that have experienced bullying, depression and the loss of a long term friendship.