The 32nd annual Sedona International Film Festival opens in classic Hollywood style, channeling the glamour of the Golden Age through Marilyn Monroe with its opening-night presentation of actress Samantha Stevens’ “In Love with Marilyn” on Saturday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. at the Sedona Performing Arts Center.
“This is a celebration of her life, and yes, there are tragic moments, but ultimately she got to do amazing things and is still being talked about 100 years later,” Stevens said about the show that celebrates 100 years since Monroe’s birth. “The goal is for audiences to be moved and to realize that there was a real woman underneath this sensuality that everybody automatically thinks about — and maybe to think a little more generously about how they see the women around them and artists in the world.”
Stevens will be accompanied by a five-piece band and performing signature songs from Monroe’s songbook from “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” to “After You Get What You Want, You Don’t Want It” that explores the theme of disillusionment of achieving external success, along with songs from Monroe’s era that fit thematically with an occasional modern song thrown in the mix.
“It’s a one-woman show, cabaret-esque, with storytelling,” Stevens said. “We talk through the high and the low points of her life, but it’s exploring her legacy alongside my own experiences as a performer and as a woman and just asking what it means to be seen and to be wanted and ultimately to be taken seriously in an industry that still struggles with all of those things.”
The piece takes a look at her not as a caricature, Stevens said, but as a conversation across time rather than an impersonation and is a “toast as opposed to a tribute show.”
“We are celebrating the amazing things that she got to achieve in her career,” Stevens said. “She was playing a sensual blonde woman, but she was a comedic genius, and that was something pretty new for Hollywood/ There was a dumb blonde act, but there’s a lot of smart that hides behind the dumb blonde. … But you have to be pretty smart to play dumb. [This] is a celebration of femininity, sensuality and the mark that she’s left on Hollywood.”
The legacy of Monroe, Stevens said she sees in both the ubiquity of Monore’s image today to her business acumen being among the first women to start their own production companies when she created Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc. in 1954 with her photographer Milton Greene.
“I think she was a lost girl who was desperately looking to be loved and have family and a sense of family. And she never found that,” Stevens said, of the woman born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926. “We talk about this in the show, this idea of just wanting to be loved and wanted by someone or something, and I think that’s what she spent her life trying to find: Is it in a man? Is it in my career? Is it in champagne? That is the unifying theme that we can all relate to as human beings.”
Stevens’ connection to Monroe began during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating what she called “Monroe Moments” — recreations of iconic looks from Monroe’s career, from costumes to photographs, sharing the history behind each moment, and the show sprung from that project.
“Life is hard and there is a lot of heaviness that’s happening in the world right now,” Stevens said. “So if we can just lead with that kindness and joy — if I don’t achieve anything else in my life or career, I know I can leave this world knowing that I was as kind as I could be to as many people, and left a little bit of sparkle and joy.”
The 2026 Sedona International Film Festival will be celebrating the globe’s best independent films from Saturday, Feb. 21, to Sunday, March 1. Ticket packages and the full 2026 schedule is now available at sedonafilmfestival.com.
“We’re keeping it simple and admission to ‘In Love With Marilyn’ is the price of a movie ticket [$18] during the festival, so you can use your passes or ticket packages to make sure it’s affordable for everybody,” SIFF Executive Director Patrick Schweiss said. “I’m beyond thrilled and over the moon to be able to celebrate the best films in the world with our community with the 2026 festival.”
Individual movie tickets are $18 for non-members or $15 for SIFF members, and individual festival tickets go on sale Monday, Feb. 16, with ticket package holders able to choose the films they want to see starting in the first week of February.
