Sundance reports

By Nigel Andrews
Published: February 16 2001 19:53GMT


DAY THREE: RAW DEAL

No film festival is complete without controversy. Billy Corben's Raw Deal: A Question of Consent is an absorbing documentary about a Florida legal furore involving a girl who claimed to have been raped during a university 'frat house' party. The students' videos recording the night's activity were confiscated for evidence; the police decided they proved consent and charged the girl with false accusation; whereupon women's rights activists stormed into town and the cops tried to appease both parties by throwing belated misdemeanour charges at the boys.

The result was an unholy mess, recounted by the key players and featuring jaw-dropping excerpts from the videos, copies of which were soon - in accordance with Florida public record law - made available to everyone in the state, with no shortage of requests.

Was the girl raped or was she a false accuser? The film lets us judge.