Keira Knightley stars in domestic violence campaign for Women’s Aid

Multi-award winning actress Keira Knightley and Atonement director Joe Wright have teamed up once again to make a landmark film to raise awareness of domestic violence.

Women’s Aid and Grey London are launching a national domestic violence awareness campaign, which centres on a hard-hitting short film directed by BAFTA-winning director, Joe Wright and starring critically acclaimed multi-award winning actress Keira Knightley. The national campaign will launch on April 2nd through cinema, TV, print and on-line.

Joe Wright gathered together a crew of over 50 who between them have a host of Oscar and BAFTA nominations for previous work, including Oscar nominated Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey and BAFTA nominated make-up and hair designer Ivana Primorac. All have donated their time to work on the film, as did Keira Knightley and Joe Wright.

Keira Knightley said: “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. We may not think we know someone who has experienced domestic violence, but this does not mean that it is not happening. Domestic violence affects one in four women at some point in their lifetime and kills two women every week. Without the services provided by Women’s Aid, many more women could be at risk of being killed, yet without donations the charity may not exist this time next year. Please donate £2 a month to Women’s Aid to help save lives.”

The two minute film, ‘CUT’, sees Keira arrive home after a days filming to be confronted by her abusive partner. The scenes that follow are disturbing but all too common and the film ends with the statement, ‘Isn’t it time someone called cut?’ The film is supported by print and the film can be seen on-line at www.cutmovie.co.uk from April 2nd.

Chris Hirst, Managing Director from Grey London said: “So many talented people have dedicated their time to this powerful campaign to raise awareness of a subject that remains taboo despite the staggering statistics that two women die from domestic violence every week.”

Nicola Harwin CBE, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid said: "We are so grateful to both Joe Wright and Keira Knightley for donating their time to make this public awareness advert. We hope the Women’s Aid campaign will both increase public awareness of domestic violence, letting abused women and their families and friends know that there is help out there, and also raise vital funds for Women’s Aid, to help us to continue in our work. For the last 35 years Women’s Aid has provided lifeline services to those at risk from violence in the home and we will continue to help save lives and keep abused women and children safe until we can put a stop to domestic violence.

Media has been donated by Pearl & Dean, DCM and Admedia.

If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence, go to www.womensaid.org.uk for information and support, including The Survivor’s Handbook which is available free to download in 11 languages.

Women’s Aid is asking everyone to go to www.womensaid.org.uk to donate £2 a month to help save lives.


About Women’s Aid
Women’s Aid is the national domestic violence charity that co-ordinates and supports an England-wide network of over 500 local services working to end domestic violence against women and children. Keeping the voices of survivors at the heart of its work, Women’s Aid campaigns for better legal protection and services, providing a strategic “expert view” to government on laws, policy and practice affecting abused women and children. In partnership with its national network, Women’s Aid runs public awareness and education campaigns, bringing together national and local action, and developing new training and resources. Women’s Aid provides a package of vital 24 hour lifeline services through its publications (available in 11 languages including English), websites (www.womensaid.org.uk and www.thehideout.org.uk), and running the Freephone 24 Hour National Domestic Violence Helpline in partnership with Refuge. Women’s Aid is a registered charity no 1054154.

0808 2000 247: Freephone 24 Hour National Domestic Violence Helpline (run in partnership between Women’s Aid and Refuge).

The Women’s Aid Website can be found at: www.womensaid.org.uk. This is a comprehensive website about domestic violence and its impact on women and children. The website has help sections for women experiencing domestic violence, as well as policy briefings and research findings. The website, built in 1999, has around 2 million hits a month. Women’s Aid also runs a website for children and young people experiencing domestic violence www.thehideout.org.uk.

About Grey London
We are 200 people, drawn from different marketing and media backgrounds, working together in a wonderfully open environment in Holborn, London. We do the lot: multi-channel, integrated, online, offline, above, through and below the line for a wide range of clients including Five, P&G, GlaxoSmithKline, IPC Media, the British Heart Foundation, Dairy Crest, Eurosport and Toshiba.

We don’t believe in agency positionings. We do believe in making our clients both successful and happy. We believe we’re better than most agencies at listening to what clients really want. Which means we’re better at understanding the problem and getting to the most exciting and effective answer.