Activist trends come and go—time will tell if KONY 2012 can have any lasting impact—but anti-bullying sentiment seems to have stuck around. A whole slew of anti-bullying campaigns have exploded into the cultural eye in the last 15 years, including recent Western guest Dan Savage’s ultra-successful social media campaign, the It Gets Better Project. The power of social media campaigns like Savage’s can’t be denied, but it shouldn’t stop on the Internet. Until recently, anti-bullying seemed to be missing out on some vital mediums—namely documentary film.

Bully, following the daily struggle of five tormented high school students, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011 to a rainstorm of attention. Since then, the documentary has been featured at Canada’s Hot Docs festival, the LA Film Festival, Italy’s Ischia Film Festival, and will be released to limited screens in the U.S. this Friday.

But Bully is currently facing a kind of bullying of its own. The playground thug? That feared buzz-killer called the MPAA. Continue reading →