BY KAREN BOSSICK

Get a look at the work of one of the women who will be taking part in the upcoming Conversations with Exceptional Women when Ketchum’s Community Library screens “Imagine I’m Beautiful.”

The film, which will be shown at 6 p.m. tonight--Thursday, Aug. 29, is the first feature film from Naomi McDougall Jones, who will take part in the two-day Conversations with Exceptional Women on Sept. 12 and 13.

The film follows a young woman who has moved to New York to get a fresh start following her mother’s suicide. After a rocky start with her troubled roommate, the two slowly forge a friendship, finding solace in each other’s difficult pasts, until one makes a discovery that will alter their friendship for good.

The 2014 film received 12 awards on the film festival circuit, including four Best Pictures, three Best Actress Awards, and the Don Award for Best Independently Produced Screenplay of 2014. It was also named one of OscarWorld’s Top 10 Films of 2014.

Naomi McDougall Jones is one of the current Hemingway Artists-in-Residence with the Community Library, along with Stephen McDougall Graham. An award-winning actress, writer, producer and women-in-film activist, she grew up in Aspen, Colo., and attended Cornell University before graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

She has appeared in 100 plays, films and TV shows, including HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.”

Her second feature film “Bite Me” recently premiered at Cinequest. It’s a subversive romantic comedy about a real-life vampire and the IRS agent who audits her.

She is writing a book, “The Wrong Kind of Woman: Dismantling the God of Hollywood,” due to be published by Beacon Press in February 2020.

Jones will take part in the Conversations with Exceptional Women Sept. 12 and 13 at the Community Library.

It will include Jeannie Ralston, former editor of Seventeen magazine and now founder and editor of a new online magazine. Also, Michelle Coffey, who supervises 2,000 attorneys throughout the world in her role as general counsel for Morgan Lewis.

The conference also features writer Karen Crouse, eight-time Olympic swim medalist Allison Schmitt and actress Tara Buck, among others.

Anne Taylor Fleming, who had been slated to appear, had to withdraw to care for a sick relative. And Mariel Hemingway has had to withdraw due to a play in Los Angeles. But speaking in her place will be Sun Valley’s own Rebecca Rusch, seven-time world mountain bike champion who will be inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in a couple weeks.

An Emmy winner and author, Rusch was the first woman to ride her bicycle up Mt. Kilimanjaro.

“She is amazing and a living legend,” said David Adler. “I am so humbled by the achievements of all of these women.”

 Tickets are available at www.alturasinstitute.com. They include coffee and muffins and lunch each day, and scholarships are available.