The Nightingale: Director Jennifer Kent defends rape and violence scenes after audience 'walk-outs'

The Babadook creator says she offers ‘honest and necessary depiction’

Director Jennifer Kent has defended controversial depictions of rape and violence in her new movie The Nightingale.

Kent, the creator of the celebrated Babadook, spoke out after some audience members reportedly walked out during the movie, citing hard-to-bear scenes.

The director said in a statement on Monday that she doesn’t believe the film, which tells the story of an Irish convict seeking revenge in Tasmania against the British officer who committed a brutal crime against her family – is “gratuitous or exploitative”.

“Whilst The Nightingale contains historically accurate depictions of colonial violence and racism towards our Indigenous people, the film is not ‘about’ violence … We’ve made this film in collaboration with Tasmanian Aboriginal elders, and they feel it’s an honest and necessary depiction of their history and a story that needs to be told,” Kent said according to The Guardian.

“I remain enormously proud of the film.”

The Independent has contacted the film’s distributors for comment.

Kent also reportedly told the audience after a screening of the film that she knew the rape scenes made for difficult viewing, but that she believed they had been shot tastefully.

Several people have said on social media and in news reports that either they or other people walked out during The Nightingale.

“The Nightingale made me do something I thought I would never do. I walked out,” Twitter user @jesuevalle wrote.

“There was a point when I just needed to take myself away from that brutal space. But I recognised that this is an important film so I walked back in and watched the rest of the movie.”

The Nightingale will be released in August in the US and in Australia.