PRINTSheltering women through film
Voices, An Experience focuses on stories of domestic abuse
Sheila johnson
Amy Sharland smiles while taking a second from editing in her lab. She directed the film Voices, An Experience over the past year, and it shows tonight. The movie shows interviews with survivors of abuse.
October 18, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CST
For the past year, local filmmaker and director Amy Sharland has turned on her camera, created a trusting environment and asked nine local women to recall some of their most emotionally painful stories. The Stephens College film student asked them to recount years of domestic violence and abuse. The result, Voices, An Experience, is a short documentary and art show brought together by Stephens College and The Shelter, a local women’s domestic care facility. The film celebrates these women’s strength, courage and resilience.
The event was sparked by a mutual interest of both institutions and developed after a conversation between Kerri Yost, the chair of the digital film department at Stephens, and Leigh Voltmer, the executive director of The Shelter.
According to Voltmer, the organization wanted to create a film that would present authentic voices of those who had overcome domestic abuse and sexual assault, but to present their voices without sensationalizing their stories.
The event, which has its premiere tonight at Orr Street Studios, provides an honest yet uplifting art show that engages the senses. The experience is modeled after art cinema that one might find at a museum, particularly targeting those interested in video art.
“It’s very different than going to see a film over and over again,” Yost says.
The show boasts an entire night of art and even encourages audience participation.
The evening consists of three different parts: visual, audio and interactive. The visual is the documentary itself.
For the audio, speakers will be placed behind pieces of art and will play sound from the footage of the film, edited together to create an audio art piece.
Finally, the interactive component will invite the audience to record its own thoughts and experiences with domestic violence and sexual assault. The members of the audience will be able to step into a confessional booth on loan from the True/False Film Festival.
From there, on their own, audience members will be able to talk about any experiences that they have or know of concerning domestic violence.
In addition, before the film begins, poetry readers and singers will perform in a reception area while visitors wait to enter.
The entire documentary is black and white, and the women’s interviews are the only footage. The film has an overall confessional tone and is built solely on their voices, their messages and their stories.
Paula Elias, of Axiom advertising agency, which is sponsoring the event, describes the premiere as the same quality of art shows in big cities like New York and San Francisco.
“I haven’t seen any or many (art shows) in Columbia that are on that level, and this event is of that caliber,” Elias says.
Sharland was drawn to the idea of the documentary because of the message it portrayed.
“I came into filmmaking because I wanted to make films about social issues and specifically documentaries,” Sharland says. “(The movie) just sounded like something that needed to be talked about. It was a story that needed to be told that hadn’t really been told in a way that really captured people prior.”
The film’s main objective was to put a face on the victims of domestic violence, showing that members of any and every community can be affected by this problem.
Voltmer says people never see these women as they look in real life. Instead, there is a stereotype these women receive, one that portrays victims as poor and uneducated, and that much of their courage and struggle is lost due to this misconception.
The issue of domestic violence is a dark and depressing subject that many would choose to avoid. All those involved with the film hope to change the way people address these issues. The event focuses on the idea that strength and courage can rise out of pain and suffering.
“I think it’s really easy for people to think that domestic violence is such a hard subject, I don’t want to approach it, I don’t want look at it, I don’t want to go to an event that has anything to do with it, and it’s just not like that,” Elias says. “I mean this event, because it is so inspiring and so empowering, I think anybody would grow from having participated in it.”
Yost is unsure what the reaction to the art show will be. The response to something so new can only be guessed. “In some ways, it’s hard to describe,” Yost says, “We don’t really want to tell people exactly what they’ll see because we really want them to experience it.”
What:Voices, An Experience
When:Thursday, 7 p.m.
Where:Orr Street Studios, 106 Orr. St
Cost:$20
Call:875-0503
