Produced by Kalel Productions, the film sees investigative reporter Ellie Flynn revealing the true extent of sexual harassment towards women of all ages in the UK.
Israeli producer and distributor Keshet International (KI) has closed deals with DPG Media, TV 2, and TV4 for the hidden camera investigation Undercover: Sexual Harassment – The Truth, recently acquired for its Spring 2023 slate following a debut on Channel 4.
Available as both a finished tape and a format, Kalel Productions’ Undercover: Sexual Harassment – The Truth is a revealing expose of a global phenomenon that is shocking to watch. Investigative reporter Ellie Flynn travels to the UK to reveal the true extent of sexual harassment towards women of all ages. Secretly guarded by hidden crew members, undercover Flynn endures countless harassments by men online and in real-life in a series of hidden-camera experiments – sometimes pretending to be a vulnerable drunk woman, at other times an innocent teenage single girl looking for love – in this documentary.
Ahead of the show’s official launch to market at MIPTV, KI licensed the free TV, pay TV, and SVOD rights to DPG Media in Belgium, TV 2 in Denmark (where it will broadcast on youth-skewing TV 2 Echo, and SVOD platform TV 2 Play), and TV4 in Finland and Sweden for this 1×60’ investigation featuring reporter Ellie Flynn. Talks are on-going with other buyers for both the tape and the format rights.
Commenting on the deals, Kelly Wright, KI’s MD of Distribution said: “This powerful investigative documentary from Kalel Productions shines a spotlight on a universal issue that sadly affects women everywhere. In the UK, 71% of women surveyed have experienced some form of sexual harassment in public and the findings of Ellie’s ground-breaking experiments are impossible to deny. As a team, we are inspired that this show is engaging so many buyers so quickly. We want to help stimulate change through a wider debate about this issue by bringing Undercover: Sexual Harassment – The Truth to the attention of audiences around the world.”
In Undercover: Sexual Harassment – The Truth, Ellie begins her investigation by signing up for dating apps using a false name but real photos of her 18-year-old self. Within minutes, her fake dating profile is bombarded with graphic texts and images, including dick pics, from men two or three times her age. Ellie then confronts some of them via video-chat, asking why.
To dig deeper into the issue of gender-based sexual harassment, Ellie then interviews a typical group of teenage girls about their daily encounters with men. When asked, 15 out of 17 teenage girls share they have been harassed by adult men when wearing their mandatory school uniform.
Next, in her experiment, Ellie chooses to put herself in danger by posing drunk and lost in two different city centre nightspots. She does this several times – all while under the watchful eyes of her production team, who are also undercover – and the response is immediate and difficult to watch. Ellie is repeatedly and deliberately targeted by different men in a predatory fashion, with one stranger following her all the way back to her hotel room. Only then does Ellie break character and demand to know why he followed her without her consent.
Finally, Ellie gathers her evidence from her two nights’ out and presents it to an all-male panel, stimulating a frank and revealing conversation in which many participants express shock at what they have seen, share a greater understanding and empathy for women’s experiences of men, while also citing a desire to be more proactive in preventing gender-based sexual harassment in the future.
