Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 8/18/26 – I have seen a lot of short films over the years, but The Intimacy Coordinator is definitely not like anything I have seen before.
And I mean that as a compliment.
Written, directed by and starring Louisa Connolly-Burnham, the film is dark, sexy, uncomfortable, funny in unexpected places and just twisted enough to keep you wondering where it is going next.
The premise alone got my attention: Kate is an intimacy coordinator.
She is also a sex addict.
That contradiction is what makes the film so interesting.
Kate works in an environment where her job is all about boundaries, consent, communication and making other people feel safe during intimate scenes. Yet behind the scenes, her own relationship with intimacy is anything but controlled.
I really enjoyed the way the film plays with that tension.
After watching the film, I had the opportunity to speak with Connolly-Burnham on Zoom, and our conversation gave me an even greater appreciation for how carefully she constructed this unusual thriller.
Writer, director and actor Louisa Connolly-Burnham
We hear so much today about intimacy coordinators and their increasingly important role on film and television sets, but The Intimacy Coordinator takes that conversation somewhere completely different.
Instead of simply showing us how the job works, the film asks what happens when the person responsible for creating boundaries is struggling with her own.
Connolly-Burnham gives Kate a fascinating mix of confidence and vulnerability. She can walk onto a set appearing completely in control, professional and composed, while underneath there is something much more complicated going on.
That made her unpredictable, and I liked that I could never quite figure her out.
During our interview, Louisa spoke about deliberately placing a woman at the center of a story involving sexual behavior, power and inappropriate choices. We have seen countless stories about men abusing professional authority or behaving badly sexually. Here, the person holding the power is a woman.
That immediately changes the dynamic.
Beneath all of Kate’s behavior is another word that became central to our conversation: shame.
Louisa cited Steve McQueen’s Shame, starring Michael Fassbender, as an important creative influence. That film explores the devastating impact of compulsive sexual behavior through a male protagonist. Louisa was interested in examining similar emotional territory through a woman.
That choice makes The Intimacy Coordinator more than a provocative premise.
It is about sex, certainly, but it is also about control, desire, addiction, identity, shame, mental health and the frightening things people can do when they believe they are still in control.
One of the things that surprised me most was how often the film made me laugh.
Not broad comedy.
More the kind of laugh that escapes before you realize you are laughing at something deeply uncomfortable.
There are moments that make you laugh, moments that make you uncomfortable and others where you may find yourself thinking, “Did that really just happen?”
For me, that is part of the fun.
Louisa told me that getting that balance right was difficult, particularly during scenes connected to Sex Addicts Anonymous.
She actually shot more comedic material than appears in the finished film.
Some of it was ultimately removed because she never wanted to appear to be mocking addiction or trivializing what the characters were experiencing.
That restraint was the right decision.
The humor that remains keeps the movie entertaining without allowing us to forget what is really happening underneath.
Because of the title and Kate’s behavior, I wanted to know exactly how Louisa felt about real-life intimacy coordinators.
She is firmly in favor of them.
Drawing on her own experiences as an actress, Louisa spoke about the importance of having someone responsible for safeguarding performers during intimate material.
That distinction matters.
The Intimacy Coordinator is not criticizing the profession.
Kate is the problem. The job is not.
In fact, that irony may be the most fascinating thing about the entire film: someone can be extraordinarily good at protecting other people’s boundaries while having absolutely no idea what to do with her own.
That is a pretty fascinating place to begin a thriller.
I was also fascinated by the technical challenge of Louisa directing herself in material that is so intimate and emotionally complicated.
She described relying heavily on preparation and trusted collaborators, including using a wireless monitor and having a producer watching from Video Village.
Her approach is deeply collaborative.
She also had a long development and financing period before filming began, meaning she had spent months living with the script and with Kate.
Louisa explained that when the preparation has been done properly, “it’s all kind of there, ready to be locked into.”
Click below for our exclusive interview:
That preparation shows.
Her performance never feels like an actress worrying about the mechanics of directing herself. Kate feels fully inhabited.
The film also has a terrific cast, including Kieron Moore, Sophie Simnett, Alexander Arnold, Lindsay Duncan, David Mumeni and Toby Williams.
Everyone seems to understand the unusual tone of the piece, which moves between psychological thriller, sexuality, dark humor and something almost voyeuristic.
During our interview, Louisa spoke about how much each performer contributed.
Kieron Moore and Sophie Simnett could draw on their own experiences as working actors, while Alexander Arnold researched Sex Addicts Anonymous as part of preparing for his role.
Louisa seemed genuinely touched that such accomplished performers agreed to come aboard, even in smaller parts.
Their involvement gives the film a strong sense of credibility and keeps its more outrageous moments grounded.
And Lindsay Duncan is simply wonderful.
Louisa is also very clear about the amount of work she believes filmmaking requires.
She told me, “I think that a film is only as good as the time, love, and energy you put into it.”
That philosophy seems to define The Intimacy Coordinator.
She researches. She prepares. She lives with her characters. She thinks carefully about tone.
And she clearly cares about the audience experience without telling the audience exactly what it must think.
That is one of the things I appreciated most about The Intimacy Coordinator.
It would have been very easy to make a film about intimacy coordination feel overly serious or instructional.
Instead, Connolly-Burnham has created something provocative and entertaining while still raising real questions about sex, power, identity, desire and control.
The film has also brought Louisa a particularly meaningful honor: the Women in Film Award at the Flickers Rhode Island International Film Festival.
That recognition was especially satisfying because she had previously submitted work to the festival seven times without being accepted.
This time, not only did she get in, she won.
Louisa told me that she entered the festival run with relatively low expectations because The Intimacy Coordinator is dark and unconventional.
Perhaps that unconventional quality is exactly why audiences are responding.
There are plenty of films that play it safe.
This is not one of them.
Louisa ultimately wants audiences to enjoy themselves.
She described the experience she hopes to create as “a real roller coaster ride.”
That is exactly what this film is.
It is bold, strange, sexy and refreshingly different — exactly the kind of short film I enjoy discovering at a festival like HollyShorts.
But underneath the entertainment is something worth thinking about: safeguarding on sets, mental health, addiction, shame and the contradictions we all carry between our public and private selves.
And perhaps most importantly, the film doesn’t tell us exactly what to think.
After watching it, I kept returning to that central irony: a person can know every rule about consent, communication and professional boundaries and still be completely lost inside her own life.
I really enjoyed this one.
And after getting to speak with Louisa Connolly-Burnham about the thought, research and personal experience behind it, I appreciate it even more.
See The Intimacy Coordinator at HollyShorts Film Festival on Saturday, August 22 at 7:30 PM at the TCL Chinese Theatres in Hollywood.
https://hollyshorts2026.eventive.org/passes/buy
Reviewed and interviewed by Valerie Milano
Senior Editor/Publisher
The Hollywood Times
