As a high school student, Martha Coolidge was raped by a classmate while they were on a date with friends in New York City. Years later, to understand what happened to her, Coolidge collaborates with actors to stage the events leading up to, during, and after the assault. Michele Manenti, also a survivor of sexual assault, plays teenage Martha, and Jim Carrington plays Curly, her date, while a larger cast takes on the various roles of her friends and roommates from boarding school. The actors perform under Coolidge’s direction, pausing between takes to describe what it feels like to play the characters and portray their actions. The actors’ own pasts influence their roles in the film in profound ways, and their discussions reveal divergent perceptions of power and privilege, submission and shame. Formally inventive, Not a Pretty Picturedeftly shifts between scripted scenes, interviews, and spontaneous discussions to examine the roles of survivor, perpetrator, and bystander and to reckon with the lasting effects of trauma. ST