Intimacy Coordinator ITA O’BRIEN on I May Destroy You, Sex Education & Creating Safe Spaces

Social Justice & Activism: The Creative Process: Activists, Environmental, Indigenous Groups, Artists & Writers Talk Diversity, Equity & inclusion

How can intimate scenes be brought to the screen in ways that respect the emotional well-being and privacy of the artists themselves? How do we make sure that we can create a story about abuse without anyone being abused in the process?

Ita O’Brien is the UK’s leading Intimacy Coordinator, founder of Intimacy on Set (and author of the Intimacy On Set Guidelines). Her company, set up in 2018 provides services to TV, film, and theatre when dealing with intimacy, and is a SAG-Aftra accredited training provider of Intimacy Practitioners. Intimacy on Set has supported numerous high-profile film and TV productions including Normal People & Conversations With Friends (BBC3/Hulu), Sex Education 1&2 (Netflix), I May Destroy You (BBC/HBO), It’s A Sin (Channel 4), (Neal Street Prods / Searchlight Pictures).

Working with Michaela Coel on I May Destroy You:

"That was such a privilege and a joy to work with Michaela Coel, just to be witness and to support her amazing creative process as a writer, as it being part of her life story, as executive producer, as co director, and then finally as actor. Those kinds of storytellings are really important in that they're told with full-on emotional content that has been intended. We don't want to have to pull back from really showing the ugly side of our humanity if there are really challenging, intimate scenes. How do we make sure, as Michaela said, that we can create a story about abuse without anybody being abused in the process?"

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