Private Project

Sacred Skin

Sacred Skin is a snapshot portrait of a women owned business. Ciara is an aesthetician that recently opened her own business after being inspired by one of her clients and the women in her life. The film explores the intimate space she’s created while sugar waxing clients who expose not only their bodies but their deepest thoughts while on her table.

  • Priscilla Gonzalez Sainz
    Director
  • Laura Reich
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    9 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    November 30, 2024
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Priscilla Gonzalez Sainz

Priscilla Gonzalez Sainz is an award-winning Latinx filmmaker and educator based in Southern California. Her work explores personal narratives of transnational experiences, displacement, and identity, with the aim of uncovering barriers of perception through storytelling.

Her directorial work (‘Room 140,’ ‘Status Pending,’ ‘Película de mi padre’) has been supported by Tribeca Film Institute, Catapult Film Fund, and NALIP, and has showcased around the world through film festivals, including AFI, Full Frame, Big Sky, and received multi-platform distribution.

She has also contributed as a producer and editor on films including ‘Love in the Time of Migration’ (2024, Erin Semine Kökdil, Chelsea Abbas), ‘Expanding Sanctuary’ (2024, Kristal Sotomayor), ‘Aguilas’ (2021, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan) and ‘The Infiltrators’(2019, Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera.

Priscilla was selected as one of five filmmakers to participate in Catapult Film Fund’s inaugural Research and Development Fellowship, where she worked on her current film, ‘Untitled Bobby Project.’

Priscilla earned her MFA in Documentary from Stanford University and is an educator at Chapman University and UCLA Extension.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I am interested in telling stories that challenge perceptions that “other-ize” people based on ethnicity, race, or class by exposing intimate spaces in a thoughtful and respectful way. As a female, BIPOC independent filmmaker, I feel I have faced unique challenges in creating a sustainable career as a filmmaker as a director and this has pushed me to look at the ways women approach work and success. I think women are and should be redefining what work looks like in America, not by emulating a man’s world, but by creating a more sustainable workforce that encapsulates what women do differently. My hope is to present these stories for audiences to pull their own conclusions from - not to tell them one way or the other is better, but to show that things can be different.

This idea started a few years ago when Kim Kardashian said in a Variety profile, “I have the best advice for women in business. Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.” A statement that got Kim a lot of pushback and criticism given her privileges and access to resources. As she made that statement Beyoncé was no doubt in the studio working on her “anti-work” anthem “Break My Soul” that dropped that June. Her lyrics declare in a powerful house anthem that feels like a direct response to Kim, “Now, I just fell in love, and I just quit my job. I'm gonna find new drive, damn, they work me so damn hard. Work by nine, then off past five. And they work my nerves, that's why I cannot sleep at night.”

“Sacred Skin” is a stand alone short but I hope to expand this project into a series that explores the depth of what being a woman at work looks like.