How do a cohort of women work together to protect themselves against societally-sanctioned rape in a secluded community?

You might think I’m referencing Best Picture nominee Women Talking here, but that lede is also the logline for the Oscars-shortlisted documentary Children of the Mist.

In Women Talking, the brutalized women try to figure out how to better their lives through democratic means: they commune to stage a series of debates hashing out the best policies to enact in order to save themselves and their future generations of daughters (and sons).

The children in Children of the Mist, however, do not possess such voting rights. Instead, they must take matters into their own hands, quite literally: a reminder of the power of documenting reality to change reality, these endangered girls decide to film the prolonged process of their kidnapping in an attempt to stop it. People say that truth dies in darkness, but in fact awful truths fester and thrive in darkness; the light of the camera can alter them.

Both movies chronicle communal nonviolent protest in action, juxtaposing the one-woman revenge plots commonly triggered by justice-evaded rape on screen.