COUCH

Over the Summer, we will be developing the short film Couch.

Eighteen years old and at a top model agency in New York. It should be a dream come true for Natasha, but instead she must choose: watching from the side-lines or submitting to her sexually predatory agent – and his friends. Will it be the agency sofa or the casting couch?

This short film is the story of an eighteen-year old girl with a one-way ticket to New York and the promise of a great modelling career. When LUCIEN (51) invites NATASHA (18) to his model agency in New York, Natasha is over the moon. TINA (32), her British agent, tells her it is a great opportunity and that her friend and fellow model, SIMON (21), is going to be there, too. However, when arrives in New York, she quickly realises that Lucien want to have sex with her.  She refuses and is banished to the agency’s sofa to “lose weight”. She watches as a succession of girl succumb to Lucien and his friends. Then Tina arrives. Surely Tina will know what to do?

Based on my experience as a model, this is my answer to a journalist who wanted to use my story to expose the real-life Lucien. As hideous and abusive as men like Lucien are, they are not always the ones that do the most damage.