Director Irene Taylor accepts the 2023 duPont Silver Baton, flanked by partner Nigel Jaquiss and production team, along with a group of the film’s subjects - survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of the Boy Scouts of America.
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“This film is not about getting into the details of exactly what they endured. It's really about understanding what they carry with them.”
– Leave No Trace Director Irene Taylor
Director Irene Taylor and Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Nigel Jaquiss met in the ‘90s here at Columbia Journalism School. Decades later they teamed up with ABCNews Studios and Hulu for “Leave No Trace,” a 2023 duPont-Columbia award winning documentary film about the sexual abuse suffered by over 80,000 young Boy Scouts at the hands of an “All-American” institution. Taylor and her team highlighted the personal accounts of six courageous men and boys who spoke candidly and heartbreakingly about the abuse they endured, including crimes the Boy Scout organization had known about for over a century, the film reveals.
In an update to the film, this past April, courts cleared the way for survivors to collect the largest sexual abuse settlement ever.
In this episode, Taylor talks to the J-School’s Professional Prizes Director Abi Wright and duPont Awards Director Lisa R. Cohen about the responsibilities journalists and filmmakers have when sharing survivors' stories.
“Their lives, suddenly, are not just there for (me) to hear when we're sitting in a room with a camera rolling, and it's very intimate,” Taylor explained. “Suddenly five million people. Eight million people. People in England. People in Australia – are watching their experience.”
Taylor details the rigor and commitment to her subjects both she and her partner Jaquiss practiced while making the film and the challenges they faced as they took on one of the most entrenched symbols of Americana. Watch Leave No Trace here. For more info on recent updates to the lawsuit, read our duPont Awards blogpost here.