The Sexual Assault Awareness Month Commitee at Sierra Community House is hosting a screening of the film Disfluency for Denim Day in Tahoe City, CA at 5pm on April 30, 2025. Our Community Education & Prevention Manager Dom Apollon has been in contact with Los Angeles-based writer/director Anna Baumgarten about the film and its impact. The conversation has been edited for clarity and space.
Dom Apollon: I saw your film when it was screened at the National Sexual Assault Conference in Washington, D.C., and absolutely loved it. It struck me as art that could really help many survivors heal, and that could also open the eyes and hearts of those who want to provide survivors with more and better support. What different types of audiences have you been screening this film for, and what types of conversations do you think it can help spark?
Anna Baumgarten: It was great to meet you at the conference! Your enthusiasm for your work and this movie really left an impression on me, and it’s so wonderful to have Sierra Community House screen the film for your community.
Disfluency started out screening for film festival audiences, which was a terrific experience. After each screening, I would usually have a few audience members –some of them survivors themselves – share one-on-one with me that the film deeply impacted them. These moments were so powerful and left me thinking, I need to get this movie to people that it will help the most. I started reaching out to communities and universities for educational screenings and discovered the need for this nuanced, realistic, conversation-starting film.
We’ve shared the movie all over the country [and] I think for me the reactions of parents caught me by surprise. They either had an experience from their past or were trying to support someone in their life going through the aftermath of assault.
Dom: Helping survivors to feel seen and fostering connections is so important for this movement to end violence.
Anna: The tree scene at the end of the film is really important to me because in my own life as a survivor, the most cathartic experience was meeting another survivor. I knew I wanted Jane to connect with someone that you might not guess would have a shared experience. Including male survivors was really important to me because they’re often left out of the conversation. Meeting male survivors through these screenings has been a very moving experience for me too.
I hope Disfluency helps spark conversations about communication in all areas of our lives –– how can we be better, more active listeners? What can we do to bring consent into all areas of our lives?
Dom: Yeah, I was so appreciative and moved by how your film captures themes of consent and communication — including how, when, and whether survivors share their stories, and how others can treat them with care and respect. As a writer and director, how did you work with your actors to translate your intentions around those themes or others from the page onto the screen?
Anna: Every survivor’s story is their own – that is such an important take away that I hope audiences get from Disfluency.
As a writer, I spent a lot of time making sure each of these characters have their own journey, their own arc, around communication. As a director, this cast made my job easy. I love them so much. When it comes to themes, we really looked at the different character’s backstories.
Where did they come from? What is their experience with being misunderstood? Libe Barer, who plays Jane, is an absolute rock star. I shared a lot about my own experience with her, and she brought a lot of those nuanced feelings we discussed – the anger, confusion, guilt – to the character.
Dom: Truckee / North Tahoe is considered a small, rural region. Do you think the film offers any particular lessons or learnings for sexual assault survivors — and people in their support system – who are living or recovering in these types of areas?
Anna: I want survivors and supporters alike to know that you are not alone. I grew up in the Midwest and went to a small, Catholic school. Sex, intimacy, and consent were not something we talked about often or knew much about. I also know the power of gossip and shame in small communities. I hope this film encourages everyone to know that you don’t always know what’s going on with someone and to give each other more grace and understanding.
I grew up in the Midwest and went to a small, Catholic school. Sex, intimacy, and consent were not something we talked about often or knew much about. I also know the power of gossip and shame in small communities. I hope this film encourages everyone to know that you don’t always know what’s going on with someone and to give each other more grace and understanding.
Dom: The film tackles a heavy topic in a really beautiful, touching, real and empathetically eye-opening way. What advice, if any, do you have for other artists who are seeking to find and use their voice to tell their own difficult stories that the world needs to hear?
Anna: My first piece of advice is to write scars not wounds. If you are still in the early, very-tender stages of healing/recovery, it may not be the right time to turn this into art to share publicly. Make sure you are taking care of your mental health first and foremost. Telling your story through any medium of art has the potential to be extremely cathartic, but make sure you’re not jumping into the deep end too quickly.
When you are ready to share your story, be gentle with yourself! Share your work first with trusted friends and loved ones. Use that as momentum to share it more and wider (if that’s what you want to do). Like I mentioned previously – it’s your story and you get to choose how to tell it.
Disfluency is screening at the Tahoe Art Haus & Cinema in Tahoe City at 5pm. Funds from the California Office of Emergency Services Sexual and Domestic Violence Prevention helped pay for Dom Apollon’s trip to the National Sexual Assault Conference in Washington, D.C. Purchase tickets for the April 30th, 2025 movie viewing here.
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