How Weinstein's survivors came together, again, to tell their stories in 'She Said'

When director Maria Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz began developing "She Said" as a film, they quickly established a few ground rules.

Their dramatization of the New York Times investigation that toppled Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and triggered a global reckoning would not include visual depictions of sexual assault or harassment. Instead, the survivors — some even playing themselves — would recall the incidents using their own words.

There would be no female nudity and no brutalized victims at the crime scene. Survivors would be fully rounded humans, defined more by their bravery and resilience than their encounters with an abusive Hollywood power player.

And, in arguably the most radical departure — given the outsize influence he wielded in the business and the industry's enduring fascination with violent predators — Weinstein himself would exist at the edges of the story. In fact, the audience would never even see his face.

"The film is not about Weinstein, it's about