Maxine Peake Boards, Exec-Produces The Secret Assistants — SkimNews
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- Maxine Peake boarded the BAFTA-qualifying short The Secret Assistants and will serve as an executive producer, calling the film “timely, urgent and brilliant”; her credits include I Swear and The Theory of Everything.
- Katey Lee Carson writes and directs The Secret Assistants and, with producing partner Rickie-Lee Roberts, drew on their experience working on major movies to inform the short.
- Camille Rutherford stars as Sophie, an ambitious newcomer whose high-stakes interview with industry titan Henry Mann in The Secret Assistants turns into a power struggle over whether to challenge an ethical line or jeopardize her future; Richard Hope plays Henry, while Gina Stiebitz and Emily Kusche round out the cast.
- The Secret Assistants’ producers emphasized that everyone involved in its production was paid equally, with one rate applying from producer to runner.
- The Secret Assistants is currently on a festival run that has taken in Busan International Short Film Festival, St Kilda Film Festival and HollyShorts.
- The Secret Assistants team says the entertainment-business setting does not confine the story’s power-imbalance and toxic-workplace themes, which apply to any sector or industry.
Why it matters: Peake takes on two roles—actor and executive producer—on a short that has appeared at three festivals: Busan, St Kilda and HollyShorts. For the crew, one rate from producer to runner is a concrete point of contrast with the workplace imbalances dramatized onscreen.
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