During her sophomore year, Ali Ragan ’16 said that her eyes were opened to the issue of sexual violence on Bowdoin’s campus in a new way.
“I realized that sexual violence affects so many people on campus, but the way we’re addressing it isn’t really effective, and we aren’t really doing a very good job of supporting survivors either,” she said. “So I started thinking of things we hadn’t done yet.”
Her answer was to start work on "Together," a film that premiered Thursday night, that would share the stories of survivors on campus. The film uses actors to portray the stories of anonymous students who contributed stories of being a survivor of sexual violence at the College. 
“It’s almost like the Vagina Monologues and Speak About It had a baby,” she said. “It is like these monologues and stories about experiences at Bowdoin, but to see it on film is completely different.”
Ragan began to think about this project during her sophomore year, and began working with Tallman Scholar in Gender and Women’s Studies Susan Faludi and Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Sarah Childress on an independent study last spring.
“It was very difficult getting started,” she said. “As a school project the school had to sign off on it, so it was difficult to find a project that the school felt like I was best protecting survivors while still...exposing how sexual violence effects Bowdoin students."
Ragan ended up sending out emails to various groups on campus to collect anonymous stories from survivors.
“I sent out the email and I didn't get any responses for two months. That was a little disheartening, because I knew the stories were out there but I think it’s really hard to write down your story,” she said. “I kept trying and eventually I got five stories. They represent a very wide range of experiences at Bowdoin, whether their experiences happened off campus and they’ve just carried the story with them onto campus or their stories happened at Bowdoin and how that’s affected their ability to be a student.”
Ragan found five actors to portray the five stories in the film. Clare DeSantis ’16 was one of the actors.
"I think it’s an opportune time to talk about this to remind everyone that it’s not always a stranger, and more often than not it does happen within our community and that we also need to be cognizant of that it happens here," she said. "At the end of the day there was no way I wasn’t going to help spread that message.”
DeSantis said that presenting one of the stories was difficult.
“It was harder than I thought it was going to be,” she said. “To actually put yourself in the headspace of what this must be like was really difficult, and I’m sure I’m only just skimming the surface.”
Ragan said that she hopes the film shows people the ways in which survivors on campus are affected, every day, by their experience with sexual violence.
“Even if a case goes perfectly and everything is taken care of exactly how the survivor wants it to be taken care of, you’re still living with this story every single day of your life and it still affects you,” she said. “I think it takes the campus to support survivors and that's what the film is aimed to do.”
Students packed into Smith auditorium for the screening on Thursday, sitting in the aisles and standing at the back of the room. 
“The most powerful part to me were the clips of people walking through the campus, because there was a sense of emptiness and loneliness, and also just something that’s so routine,” said Brooke Goddard ’17. “It was like an expression of something that is so routine and so common for every Bowdoin student, just walking around the campus, but you don’t know what people are thinking about when they’re walking around, and what it feels like to be on this campus for certain members of the student body.”
Members of Safe Space and Peer Health held facilitated conversations following the screening. Marcella Jimenez ’16 is a member of Safe Space, and helped with the facilitations. Ragan showed facilitators the film prior to the premiere. 
“She had us watch the film and then we had a chance to debrief, and she held space for us to talk about it,” said Jimenez. “It was really powerful to see the film the first time, and I don’t think I could have just seen it once and then facilitated, just because there were so many different emotions and things to process… Seeing it a second time I was a little more attuned to other people’s potential responses.”
Ragan plans to show the film again next semester. 

This article was updated on Friday December 11th at 1:00 a.m.

During her sophomore year, Ali Ragan ’16 said that her eyes were opened to the issue of sexual violence on Bowdoin’s campus in a new way.
“I realized that sexual violence affects so many people on campus, but the way we’re addressing it isn’t really effective, and we aren’t really doing a very good job of supporting survivors either,” she said. “So I started thinking of things we hadn’t done yet.”

Her answer was to start work on "Together," a film that premiered Thursday night, that would share the stories of survivors on campus. The film uses actors to portray the stories of anonymous students who contributed stories of being a survivor of sexual violence at the College. 

“It’s almost like the Vagina Monologues and Speak About It had a baby,” she said. “It is like these monologues and stories about experiences at Bowdoin, but to see it on film is completely different.”

Ragan began to think about this project during her sophomore year, and began working with Tallman Scholar in Gender and Women’s Studies Susan Faludi and Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Sarah Childress on an independent study last spring.

“It was very difficult getting started,” she said. “As a school project the school had to sign off on it, so it was difficult to find a project that the school felt like I was best protecting survivors while still...exposing how sexual violence effects Bowdoin students."

Ragan ended up sending out emails to various groups on campus to collect anonymous stories from survivors.

“I sent out the email and I didn't get any responses for two months. That was a little disheartening, because I knew the stories were out there but I think it’s really hard to write down your story,” she said. “I kept trying and eventually I got five stories. They represent a very wide range of experiences at Bowdoin, whether their experiences happened off campus and they’ve just carried the story with them onto campus or their stories happened at Bowdoin and how that’s affected their ability to be a student.”
Ragan found five actors to portray the five stories in the film. Clare DeSantis ’16 was one of the actors.

"I think it’s an opportune time to talk about this to remind everyone that it’s not always a stranger, and more often than not it does happen within our community and that we also need to be cognizant of that it happens here," she said. "At the end of the day there was no way I wasn’t going to help spread that message.”

DeSantis said that presenting one of the stories was difficult.
“It was harder than I thought it was going to be,” she said. “To actually put yourself in the headspace of what this must be like was really difficult, and I’m sure I’m only just skimming the surface.”

Ragan said that she hopes the film shows people the ways in which survivors on campus are affected, every day, by their experience with sexual violence.
“Even if a case goes perfectly and everything is taken care of exactly how the survivor wants it to be taken care of, you’re still living with this story every single day of your life and it still affects you,” she said. “I think it takes the campus to support survivors and that's what the film is aimed to do.”

Students packed into Smith auditorium for the screening on Thursday, sitting in the aisles and standing at the back of the room. 

“The most powerful part to me were the clips of people walking through the campus, because there was a sense of emptiness and loneliness, and also just something that’s so routine,” said Brooke Goddard ’17. “It was like an expression of something that is so routine and so common for every Bowdoin student, just walking around the campus, but you don’t know what people are thinking about when they’re walking around, and what it feels like to be on this campus for certain members of the student body.”

Members of Safe Space and Peer Health held facilitated conversations following the screening. Marcella Jimenez ’16 is a member of Peer Health, and helped with the facilitations. Ragan showed facilitators the film prior to the premiere. 

“She had us watch the film and then we had a chance to debrief, and she held space for us to talk about it,” said Jimenez. “It was really powerful to see the film the first time, and I don’t think I could have just seen it once and then facilitated, just because there were so many different emotions and things to process… Seeing it a second time I was a little more attuned to other people’s potential responses.”

Ragan plans to show the film again next semester. 

Correction, December 11, 10:31 a.m.: Marcella Jimenez '16 is a member of Peer Health, not a member of Safe Space.