Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

UPDATED: April 1, 2021 at 10:55 a.m.

María Fernanda Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri saw how easy it was to become trapped in an abusive relationship while growing up in Mexico City.

Her friends, the strongest people she knew, would fall under the manipulation of their toxic partners. The constant victim-blaming — oftentimes by women due to internalized misogyny — in the Latin community shamed them into silence about their relationships.

“Offhand comments in high school were like, ‘Well, she did it to herself.’ ‘She was the one who was with him.’ ‘She knew he wasn’t a great guy,’” the Syracuse University junior said.

To her surprise, Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri witnessed similar patterns among her friends at SU. They would fall into a toxic relationship, struggle to leave it and feel too embarrassed to talk about it.

These experiences led Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri, seven other SU students and members of the independent film company Come As You Are Productions to create a film called “Stage Five.” The team plans to begin filming April 2 and expects to have the final cut complete by May 12.

“Stage Five” takes place over a single evening and follows a young woman who works at a domestic abuse shelter and helps her friend escape her abusive boyfriend. The film aims to give a sense of hope to those who are in toxic relationships and educate viewers on an issue that she believes is rarely spoken about.

“It’s not only about educating but also about making people realize that what a lot of these women are feeling, it’s the same thing they’re feeling,” she said. “There’s no reason they should be ashamed of it.”

Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri and the film’s producer and assistant director Arora McCargar started making the film last September after discovering they shared a love of telling stories about social issues, especially those spotlighting women. As they started planning the film, they formed an independent student production company CAYA Productions and started recruiting their peers in December.

Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri — who started writing the script in mid-September — is on her 13th rewrite. She planned to focus the film on the broad topic of the wealth gap in America, but while writing the first draft, she found herself leaning on the theme of sexual assault.

In January, she had a change of heart on the script after becoming aware of femicides in Mexico, and she focused on domestic abuse with one of the characters as a Latinx woman.

“I feel like even though I do want to work (in America), I owe it to Mexico — my country — and the people I know to shed a light on these stories,” Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri said. “That was really a point where I realized that it’s not even just that I want to do it, I realized it’s something I have to do.”

To make sure she portrayed the experiences of domestic abuse survivors accurately, Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri interviewed her friends who were formerly in toxic relationships and sought their feedback on the script.

“I wanted to make sure that they felt that they were being listened to,” Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri said.

Ramos-Francia Ylizaliturri ended the film with the main character leaving her abuser to show survivors it is possible to escape a toxic relationship, even if it takes weeks or months.

Cole Maute, CAYA’s director of photography, hopes viewers leave the film with the courage to leave a situation that may not be good for them in the long term. While McCargar wants viewers to learn empathy, especially when dealing with a friend who’s in an toxic relationship.

“Be aware that everyone is experiencing something that nobody sees,” she said.

McCargar said she plans to submit the 13-minute film to next year’s Sundance Film Festival under the short film section and release it on CAYA’s website. The next steps for the company include obtaining the rights for the production company’s name and producing six movies by graduation in May 2022, including three from students outside the company.

CAYA wants to be an inclusive film company and help others with filmmaking starting with “Stage Five,” said Lauren Rub, executive producer and unit production manager for CAYA. She hopes that viewers can learn as much from the characters in her films as she does.

“If I can impact one person, I’d be the happiest person in the world,” Rub said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said the main character was a Latinx woman. The woman is one of the characters, not the main character.

CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this article was updated to clarify that victim-blaming by women can be due to internalized misogyny.

Published on March 29, 2021 at 10:10 pm

Contact Abby: akweiss@syr.edu | @abbyweiss_21