Not a Pretty Picture

New 4K Restoration

In 1976, trailblazing director Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl, Rambling Rose) made her feature debut with the startling Not a Pretty Picture, a documentary-fiction hybrid that continues to raise provocative questions about sexual violence and the ethics of its on-screen representation. Coolidge based the film’s fictional sections on her rape at the age of sixteen; in the role of her younger self, she cast Michele Manenti, also a rape victim. As they interpret Coolidge’s script, cast members reflect on their encounters with assault; their feelings about acting out these scenes of intense aggression; their attitudes concerning consent, trauma, and self-blame; and, in the case of Coolidge’s best friend, Anne Mundstuk, their ability to play themselves. Realizing documentary’s potential to foster catharsis and interpersonal dialogue, Not a Pretty Picture stands as one of the genre’s boldest and most revelatory experiments in metacinema.

* “Young at Heart” Retrospective, Berlinale 2023 – Picked by Céline Sciamma

“A film I wished I had seen as a teenager. Not a Pretty Picture feels strikingly close to contemporary narratives and the reflexive politics around the gaze. It means it contributed to inventing them all.”