Atonement director Joe Wright and star Keira Knightley have teamed to create a powerful ad attacking domestic violence that will premiere in U.K. theaters April 6. The film, entitled Cut, was produced by the British charity Women's Aid and is part of a new U.K. domestic violence awareness campaign. As The Guardian reports, the agency that produced the clip, Grey London, is still negotiating with British broadcasters over inclusion of the film's violent content.

Commented Knightley: "I wanted to take part in this advert for Women's Aid because while domestic violence exists in every section of society we rarely hear about it. Domestic violence affects one in four women at some point in their lifetime and kills two women every week."

As a side note, Andrew Puliver notes in The Guardian's film blog that the clip may be a subversive retake on Peter Greenaway's The Baby of Macon, which had a similar "tearing down the fourth wall" concept. Pulliver writes:

Unsurprisingly, on its release The Baby of Macon aroused much loathing, and did much to cement Greenaway's reputation as a joyless, cold-hearted stylist completely lacking in the milk of human kindness. Foul though the film is, and as meretricious as it may be in its meditation on the nature of staged and actual violence, its sheer nastiness means that it supplies a major jolt – one that Knightley and Wright have been canny enough to replicate. It's certainly one way to subvert one of the most misogynistic films of all time.

The spot is embedded below and can also be seen on its official site, linked to above.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 4/02/2009 01:26:00 PM

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