Gymnasts for Change Community Cinema Screening

Welcome to our first ever Gymnasts for Change Community Event!

Join us at the Bertha DocHouse screen for an inspiring afternoon filled with powerful conversation showcasing the work of athlete advocates making a difference in our sport. Hear stories of resilience and determination at this in-person event that promises to be a heartwarming experience for all.

On Sunday 07th July, Gymnsts for Change will host the premier of Broken Kids: The Untold Story of Young Athletes (Arte.TV July 20204) at the Bloomsbury Curzon, bringing together survivors, activists and supporters from our community for an engaging in-person survivor-led panel discussion and Q&A to celebrate the 4 year anniversary of the Gymnasts Alliance Movement.

Women’s Artistic Gymnastics has experienced a significant global reckoning since the Larry Nassar trial and the release of the Netflix documentary Athlete A, in 2020. Never before have gymnasts from around the world turned to journalists and online media to disclose the realities of life in the sport.

Over the past 4 years, documentary films have played an essential role in amplifying the voices of athletes who have chosen to speak out, and our event on Sunday 07th July will feature one such film Broken Kids: The Untold Story of Young Athletes (Arte.TV July 20204).

The event will open with a contribution from The Army of Survivors (USA), and we will be joined by film directors Pierre-Emmanuel Luneau-Daurignac (France) and Jonathon Jones (UK). The screenings will be followed by a panel discussion bringing together international activists who have played pivotal roles in speaking about abuse in gymnastics, including international athletes rights campaigners Kim Bui (Germany), and Perta Witjes (Netherlands) and campaigner and founder of Athletes Rights Australia Alison Quigley (Australia).

The discussion will invite the audience to consider the oppressive gender politics that exist within gymnastics, the legality of the time limitations imposed on historic investigations into cases of abuse, and the effect of the sport’s lack of acknowledgement of its own systemic practices of abuse to explicitly ask, ‘Where are we four years on? What has the movement achieved to date? And what is still left to do?’

After the Q&A, we invite members of our community to join us for drinks at the cinema bar to connect and socialise.

N.B. The event will be hosted in a trauma informed way and we will have a therapist on hand for anyone who needs suport during the event.

Cinema

Bertha DocHouse Screen
Curzon Bloomsbury
The Brunswick Centre
London WC1N 1AW

Bertha DocHouse is the first dedicated documentary cinema in the UK and is a wonderful location for us to host our first G4C community event.

Panelists:

Kim Bui (Germany)
Petra Witjes (Holland)
Alison Quigley (Australia)
Pierre Emanuel Luneau-Daurignac (France)
Jonathan Jones (UK)

Access Information

The Bertha DocHouse screen is on level -2 of the Curzon Bloomsbury. It is accessible by lift and has one wheelchair space. There is also a wheelchair-accessible restroom.
Seating Dimensions:
Width: 49cm
Depth: 49cm
Rows A-F: all seats have armrests
Row G: includes three sets of ‘double seats’ that don’t have an arm rest in between.

Film Screening:

Broken Kids: The Untold Story of Young Athletes (July 2024 Arte.TV)

With it’s UK premier, French film Broken Kids: The Untold Story of Young Athletes (July 2024 commissioned by Arte.TV), featuring the work of Gymnasts for Change, takes an in-depth look at the way in which young athletes in sport are left vulnerable to abuses of power from coaches and sporting institutions. As our future gymnasts, swimmers, figure skaters, hockey, tennis or football players, young athlete’s childhoods are sacrificed in pursuit of elite-level sports. Children as young as 10 years old already suffer from recurring injuries, burnout, or eating disorders. Despite the initial outcry against the harsh training regimes in the Eastern Bloc some forty years ago, high-performance sports institutions have failed to learn from past mistakes. Instead, taking advantage of the lack of specific legal protections, the Western world appears to have not only perpetuated, but also refined these practices. This eye-opening international investigation sheds light on the widespread adoption of inhumane training methods in high-level sports, with children bearing the heavy toll of our relentless pursuit of medals.

Commissioned by French and German tv Channel Arte.TV the film will be released internationally on the eve of the Paris Olympics and this is the only opportunity to watch the English version of the film. The film is in French, German and English with English subtitles and voice over.

Panelists Biographies

Kim Bui
Kim Bui is a former international German artistic gymnast who represented Germany at the 2012, 2016, and 2020 Olympic Games. In her final competition, she was part of the first German team to win a European team medal. In April 2021, Bui competed at the European Championships in Basel where during the all-around final Bui and compatriot Elisabeth Seitz wore unitards as a statement ‘against sexualization in gymnastics’. In 2021, Bui addressed the German parliament with a rousing speak on the need for change within the sport stating "If nothing changes, it will be a slap in the face to all those who went public with their story”.

Petra Witjes
Petra Witjes is a former international gymnast who competed for Holland in 2007 at the world championships. Petra first shared her experinces of inappropriate coaching and child abuse in the sport in 2006 and 2009, long before the release of Athlete A in 2020. As one of the key whistleblowers in both Dutch and European gymnastics, Petra strongly believes that her experiences of raising the alarm, and the subsequent covered up, show that the performance of young athletes is always more important to the nation than the well-being of children in sports.

Alison Quigley
Alison Quigley is a former national level gymnast who competed in Australia in the late 1980’s. For decades she said nothing about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her gymnastics coach, but everything changed for her in 2016 when the radio began streaming Australia’s Royal Commission testimony - stories of abusers across all sports hurting children who had been trapped in the same position as her. She spoke to police, her team was amazing, and she secured a conviction in 2017, later leading her to become a doctoral candidate in law studying child-safe policies in Australian gymnastics. In 2020, following the release of Athlete A, Alison connected with Gymnasts for Change, as well as other gymnasts in Australia to set up where she pursues her interest in organisational change, transparency, accountability & redress and is outspoken on the issue of gagging orders - campaigning for athlete voices to be the central pillar of safeguarding advocacy. Alison strongly belives that must survivors must play a vital role in enacting reforms and solutions for the future wellbeing of the sport.

About Gymnasts for Change
Gymnasts for Change was founded in 2020, following the Gymnast Alliance Movement on Twitter. Our mission is to support gymnasts around the world to use their voice to affect long-term transformative culture change across the sport. As a survivor led global network of former gymnasts, coaches & parents who have come together to campaign for change, we want to end abusive coaching practices in gymnastics, support those who have experienced abuse and create sweeping reform for better athlete welfare within the sport worldwide. Core to our work as an organisation is the provision of strategic survivor led advocacy & litigation. Foundational to our work are Articles 3, 6, 12, 24 & 31 of the UN convention on the Rights of a Child: The right to play, the right to develop, and the right to be heard.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bertha DocHouse, Bertha DocHouse, London, United Kingdom