Catherine Zdeblick
Screenwriter Mary Sewell: “For me the catharsis is complete.”
He was a celebrated man of science, well known to many throughout New Zealand by his appearances in the local media. By the time he died in 2013 at age 91, he had received numerous honors for work in his field and, to some, had become a familiar household name.
But as it turns out, the man was also a serial sexual abuser. And a childhood encounter with him changed the life of local screenwriter Mary Sewell.
“He was a close friend of the family and a bachelor,” recalls Sewell, a New Zealand native and wife of Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra music director Andrew Sewell. “He was tall and fit, outgoing, likeable, and had charisma.”
Sewell’s parents knew and trusted the man, so it was not unusual for Sewell, her sister and brother to spend weekends with him at his oceanside home, where the abuse occurred.
Sewell never confronted the man about the experience before he died, nor did her sister or any other children Sewell says he had molested. Sewell, a classically trained violinist, decided to address the issue of childhood sexual abuse by writing a screenplay based, in part, on the experience.
Let Your Sisters Be is a 20-minute short film that explores the sexual abuse of two young girls at the hands of an older man. The screenplay has already earned accolades, including being named Best Family Drama and Best Factual Screenplay at the 2018 Monaco International Film Festival. It also is one of the “final four” nominated screenplays at the New Renaissance Film Festival being held in March in Amsterdam.
Best of all, the film is being helmed in New Zealand by Aileen O’Sullivan, a screen actor and prolific documentary producer/director. A professional crew has been assembled, the budget of slightly more than $135,000 raised, and pre-production for what Sewell says will likely be a five- to seven-day shoot is underway.
“Aileen said she would not think of making this film without me sitting at her side,” says Sewell, who left for New Zealand this month. “She trusts my vision for the film.”
Sewell has written other film scripts and has had several of them produced, including Fantasy in D Minor, a locally made film featuring Sewell’s daughter, Lydia, and local actors Colleen Madden and Michael Herold. Harriet Sewell, the author’s sister-in-law, works for HELP
Auckland, an organization that fights sexual abuse, and introduced the script to O’Sullivan.
Let Your Sisters Be tells the story of two Maori sisters who are coping with shame after an older white man abused them. The emotional toll on the girls is evident, but the film is not graphic in any way, Sewell says. The goal is for families and children to view this film and better understand the signs of sexual abuse.
“This all about the grooming that pedophiles do of the children and their families to build trust,” she explains. “After the abuse occurs it’s all about keeping secrets.”
Sewell kept her abuse secret for 10 years until a chance game of Truth, Dare or Promise with her sister revealed that the man had abused both sisters. It was the first time either one of them had talked about it
“For me the catharsis is complete,” Sewell says of her screenplay. “I have no more processing to do, and I am in a very good place.”
Her only wish, like that of the characters in her script, is that she could have confronted the man with his crime before he died.
Sewell says the man, who was never charged for his crimes, married at age 50, choosing a woman who had two daughters and a son, much like her own family. Ten years after his wife died, the man, then in his 80s, moved to a town on New Zealand’s North Island.
According to Sewell, he bought a house next door to an elementary school.
