A lot of the reviews on here have echoed my feelings about this film, but I'll try go in depth anyway.
I'll start by saying I'm absolutely on board with this film's message (though who isn't?), and I think there is evidence of some very talented filmmakers on this team.
Ultimately though, I feel this was very much the wrong forum to execute this message. It wasn't just that it feels like a PSA, but it's also very loosely connecting itself to the genre, which leads me to believe, as others have said, that you guys all decided to make a film about #metoo before the weekend, which isn't AGAINST the rules necessarily, but certainly not in the spirit of the competition- if this assumption on my part is even true which it may not be- but the idea of this team brainstorming on the Friday night and landing on this idea is equally as bizarre.
After the statistics, we get to the poem, which really just drilled down into what was already the burgeoning troubled nature of this film. I think poetry, especially spoken word, can at the best of times be pretty hard to take seriously (I say this having actually dabbled in the art form as well), and with such a serious subject it almost felt like you guys were burying yourself even further.
Both digging up a piece of paper saying "Your Voice" and the lead saying "Me Too" were both pretty heavy handed- and worst of all cheesy, which is exactly the vibe a film about these subjects should not have.
I do respect the attempt to do something serious here, but if this was absolutely the story you wanted to tackle there are better ways of doing it. It would have been heavy, but way more effective if you moved all the spirit and intent behind the stats and the metaphor and the poem into an actual narrative story...
One of the other reviews mentions that showing the lead executing her rapist was the wrong message to send, and I agree that this is quite a dangerous way of thinking about revenge, HOWEVER I feel it's only dangerous because it's such a high concept filmic way of dealing with a rapist, which is then coupled once again with the no nonsense seriousness of the stats and the buzzwords being delivered.
This is all to say that if your movie had just been a traditionally told short film about a woman who escapes from an evil dude, and then proceeds to come back for revenge (maybe she's even saving others still kidnapped), then you have a film that both deals with the message you were looking at (sure the on the surface stuff of a woman defeating a rapist is obvious, but her saving other victims is kind of tactile metaphor for the goal of "speak up" to encourage and empower other women), and it's also a fun and cathartic film for audience to watch- the latter of which I think this film failed in.
Once again, the last thing I want to do is belittle you as a team or the ideas you're putting on the table, and the reason this review is so long is because I don't want you guys to think I'm saying it's bad and cringey and shouldn't have been made, I'm more trying to put across to you that the difference between film and Public Service Announcements and trending hashtags, is that you actually GET to be subtle, you GET to show and not tell, and people aren't supposed to inherently know your film's message. One of my favourite things about film is personal interpretation.
So for next year, by all means I encourage you to deal with the heaviest and darkest parts of life, but do so in a way that acts as a film first instead of a commercial.
As for your title, "Speak Up" certainly works, but it still falls into that cheesiness- though had it been a pulpy horror film or a revenge flick, this would have been a great title.