She’s Not Alone nominated for film awards
She’s Not Alone short film was a finalist at the 2023 Women Deliver Arts and Film Festival and Melbourne CINEVERSE Film Festival.
She’s Not Alone is a collaborative short film about ridesharing, gender-based violence and the outsourcing of trust and safety to automated systems. It invites us to sit with real stories of gender-based violence as more than just data but as lived experiences.
In a world where automated systems, technology and digital data are increasingly present we want to prompt governments, tech designers and industry to ask: What kinds of safeguards do we want in a world of automated technologies? How should we manage and control them? We need to imagine a future where safety involves a combination of technology and human connections/community support.
Inspired by a true story, the film follows Lina, played by Michelle Keating, who endures an alarming rideshare experience that violates her right to safety. It highlights how ‘share my trip’ and ‘follow my ride’ functionalities only provide an illusion of safety, as opposed to a means of emergency intervention.
“Gender based violence in cars is not new. Technology does not enable violence in cars and technology does not yet keep us safe from violence in cars. Lina’s story highlights that in many cases, tracking devices provide the illusion of safety, as opposed to a means of emergency intervention.
Any solution to gender based violence is going to be a combination of humans helping other humans, support networks, and people working together with the tools they have to create a more fair and equitable world. Technology is one tool we have at our disposal. Automation and AI are emerging technologies that may be able to help- it’s an invitation to do better”
ADM+S Research Fellow and filmmaker Jeni Lee
This short film is intended as an intervention for audiences to reflect on gender-based violence in and around transport mobilities and to motivate us to think what we can do better to counter gender-based violence in our own fields of expertise.
Industry, governments, tech designers, storytellers and survivors all have a role to play tackling the gender-based violence that is still prevalent globally and locally.
She’s Not Alone invites us to sit with real stories of gender-based violence as more than just data but as lived worlds. We hope this film will generate some empathy in audiences and humanise some of the horrendous statistics we still see.
Our collaborative short film 'She's Not Alone' is available for educators to use as a tool in their coursework, prompting designers to use a gendered lens as they consider safety challenges in platform design.
You can read more about the project and watch the film on the ADM+S website.
The film is a collaboration between Monash University and non-for-profit data advocacy organisation, She’s A Crowd.
This film was funded through the Monash University node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making + Society (ADM+S), a cross-disciplinary, national research centre, which aims to create new knowledge and strategies necessary for responsible, ethical, and inclusive automated decision-making.