Bad Hostage

Stories of kidnappings and bank heists intersect with the director’s own thrilling family tale, as this electrifying film reveals the true origins of Stockholm Syndrome.

In March 1973, the filmmaker’s grandmother was in an impossible situation when two men held her and her five children at gunpoint in their house. 50 years later, director Mimi Wilcox connects this personal story to the tales of Patty Hearst and Kristin Enmark. Featuring interviews with Enmark, the person most closely associated with the origins of the term Stockholm Syndrome, we explore how human compassion comes into conflict with police aggression and institutional prejudice. Bad Hostage interrogates this misogynist myth and in doing so re-frames falsehoods and decades of pop culture lore.

This film will screen as part of the programme Shorts: Truth to Power.