Film Image
To Love, Honor & Obey
Producer: Third World Newsreel
1980
Color
55 minutes
US
English

To Love, Honor & Obey

This film explores the social, psychological and cultural factors that contribute to violence against women regardless of ethnicity or economic background. Survivors, safe house administrators, counselors, police officers, and male abusers in counseling explore the many factors that contribute to the pervasiveness of this tragic aspect of American family life. Shot in battered women's shelters, urban and suburban neighborhoods, counseling centers, and even in a county jail where a woman has been incarcerated for the murder of her abusive husband. A Third World Newsreel production.
Pricing & Ordering
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Higher Education Institutions DSL 3-years License $300.00
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Higher Education Institutions Life Digital File Sale $600.00
K-12, Public Libraries & Select Groups DVD Sale $80.00
Non-Theatrical/Educational DVD Rental $300.00
Semi-Theatrical Blu-Ray Rental $350.00
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Reviews
"...an outstanding presentation of the issues surrounding domestic violence. What makes this film special is that it doesn't preach but at the same time doesn't gloss over the severity of the problem. The women shown are truly representative of what happens." - Judy Brown, Director, Yonkers Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence
"Family violence… has been dragged into the light of day recently by a haunting film made by a team of minority women at Third World Newsreel. TO LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY… makes graphic as only film can the plight of wome being battered by their husbands. Repeatedly. Brutally. With near impunity." - Prof. Clyde Taylor, San Francisco Tribune
"…a film that explores the many factors that contribute to the battered woman syndrome. By placing this syndrome in its total context of family, culture and society, and by looking at prevalent social attitudes towards battered women, this film will go far toward educating the public about the seriousness of the problem, as well as presenting alternative means of confronting it in realistic ways." - Miriam Friedlander, New York City Council Member & Chairwoman, Sub-Committee on the Status of Women
"What is especially good about TO LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY is that it shows a variety of perspectives of institutional response to domestic violence. The actual footage of the battered women, the shelters and police calls is dynamic and compelling. The film will be an excellent tool for developing an awarenes about the issue. I highly recommend the film! - Lois West, Director, Resource Center on Family Violence, Center for Women Policy Studies
"The work of veteran filmmaker Christine Choy has often been concerned with revising our commonly and uncritically held views, most often with hard-hitting footage that simply marvels." - All Movie Guide
To Love, Honor and Obey (Christine Choy & Marlene Dann) and Inside Women Inside (Christine Choy & Cynthia Maurizio) give voice and body to the systemic injustices that to this day affect women across all ethnic and economic circumstances. Taken together, the films demonstrate the absolute necessity of exploring not only the trauma and lasting effects of abuse, but the conditions that allow for such a thing to persist at all. - Brittany Stigler, ScreenSlate Blog
"Incendiary newsreel... TO LOVE HONOR & OBEY takes hard look at domestic abuse, interviewing survivors, social workers, police officers, and male abusers, laying bare the prejudices and attitudes that allow the problem of domestic violence to persist." - Nellie Killian, Tell Me: Women Filmmaker, Women's Stories
"TO LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY offers bracing portraits of women. In TO LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY, Choy’s subjects testify to the psychological and physical abuse they suffered in their marriages; the filmmaker then interviews some of those abusers, as well as social workers and police officers. The blatantly misogynistic attitudes of the men will make audiences wince. What is especially apparent in Choy’s work is that the point-of-view of the filmmaker in relation to her subjects is neither judgmental nor neutral." - Maria Garcia, Film Journal International
"TO LOVE, HONOR AND OBEY collects numerous interviews with survivors, abusive partners, social workers, and police officers. The focus is still clearly on the women’s voices — whether they’re seeking, or providing, help. Theirs is a powerful testimony about holding onto sisterhood for survival." - Monica Castillo, Village Voice
Awards

• Merit Award, Athens International Film Festival, Ohio
Screenings
• Global Village Video and Television Documentary Festival, New York
• Ann Arbor Film Festival, Michigan
• Asian American International Film Festival, New York
• Festival Cinema du Reel, Paris
• Independent Focus, WNET, New York
• WWHY-TV, Watertown, New York
• Brooklyn Arts and Curlture Association Filmsearch 84
• The Learning Channel, The Independents Agenda Series, Washington DC
• Whitney Museum
• The Bronx Museum of Art
• Asian American Film Institute, New York
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Planned Parenthood Federation of America, New York
• Asian CineVision, New York
• Cornell Cinema, Ithaca
• Tell Me: Women Filmmakers, Women's Stories, Metrograph, 2018

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TWN acknowledges that in New York we are on the unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape, Canarsie, Shinecock, and Munsee peoples and challenges the harm that continues to be inflicted upon Indigenous and People of Color communities here and abroad, which is why we all need to be part of the struggle for rights, equality and justice.

TWN is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Color Congress, MOSAIC, New York Community Trust, Peace Development Fund, Ford Foundation, Golden Globe Foundation, Kolibri Foundation and individual donors.