Not a Pretty Picture

An incredibly bold debut film by director Martha Coolidge aims to reconstruct her personal experience of sexual abuse. Using the docufiction genre, the director and actors rethink traumatic experiences, violence against women, sexual violence, and the problems of on-screen representation of it. The actress playing the director, who has also experienced abuse, helps to create a dialogue within the team, during which personal experiences and questions about guilt and consent arise not as an individual internal struggle, but as a systemic problem.

Martha Coolidge 

Martha Coolidge – the first ever film major at the Rhode Island School of Design, the first female president of the Directors Guild of America, and the first to cast Nicolas Cage as a lead in a feature film. Rising to prominence with the cult classic Valley Girl (1983), Coolidge brought a fresh, female perspective to coming-of-age narratives and romantic comedies. Her work often explores themes of identity, gender roles, and class.