Ciara Stephens will have the honor of kicking off the Hot Springs International Women’s Film Festival this Friday.
“Stages,” a short documentary by Stephens, will open the three-day festival that runs May 10-12 at the Malco Theater in Hot Springs. The film by the senior from Cherry Valley will show at 6 p.m. Friday.
The film is a companion piece to a visual arts piece Stephens created. She described it as “a deeply personal film that I made that tells the story of all the highs and lows that created the person I am today; it discusses the fears I had to overcome, my victories and the people around me who believed in me and gave me the confidence to grow.”
“Stages” tells Stephens’ story of growing up in a small town where she felt discouraged and trapped. Combining her artistic talents with her interest in creating videos, she helped develop several projects through the EAST program at Cross County High School, which she attended at the time. That included one film that highlighted the various projects she and her classmates had worked on during the school year.
The EAST-produced film won the 2022 Founder’s Award at the state EAST Initiative Convention. Stephens and a classmate presented at the conference, something she would not have felt comfortable doing in previous years.
In “Stages,” Stephens speaks about how her involvement in the EAST program helped her grow and adapt as a person and how it challenged her while providing an important outlet for her feelings. Stephens chose to tell her story by using footage from her EAST experience combined with a companion piece that features two pieces of artwork she created as a student at ASMSA.
“The companion piece was actually the inspiration for the film,” Stephens said. “It serves as a visual representation of the story that illustrates the underlying metaphor of the film. The painting at the bottom of the door represents the small town I grew up in. In fact, the design is based on the logo of my family's farm back at home.
“The top painting is a portrait of myself on stage, which I reflect on in the video as the pivotal moment in my life where I found myself. The self-portrait is partially covered with a screen, but has a big tear through the middle to represent myself breaking out of the stereotypical path in front of me and carving my own as though I was trapped behind a screen and had to break through it.”
Stephens said the piece takes a shape of a door to represent the moment she was on stage at the EAST Conference that “opened a door” to her dreams and “all that I didn’t know I was capable of accomplishing.” She wanted to create something reminiscent of what she might see in her hometown. The film plays on a monitor next to the two visual arts piece as “an impromptu window I hoped to give viewers as a glimpse into a transformational moment in my life.”
Friday’s festival isn’t the first festival showing for “Stages.” It was also selected for the Oasis Film and Digital Media Fest held on April 26-27 in Jonesboro. She has also been named a finalist for the 2024 Congressional Art Competition by Fourth Congressional District U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman.
Stephens said she has been appreciative of the reception her film and artwork have received.
“Creating this film, I dove deep, asking myself what are the key moments in my life that truly made me, me,” Stephens said. “Doing that and then putting it out for the world to see felt extremely vulnerable, but I could not be happier with the response I’ve received for that vulnerability. The responses to the film have not only given me validation as a filmmaker, but validation of my journey so far.”
To learn more about this weekend’s festival, visit https://hotspringswomensfilmfestival.com/.