Just google the term ‘sextortion’ and you will quickly see the tragedies that are associated with it. You will also see the young people who are exploited by it. Here’s a story of a woman who decided to document the process of bringing herself back to power.
My Sextortion Diary works as mise-en-abyme (or ‘story within a story’) as documentary filmmaker Patricia Franquesa gets her laptop stolen while in the process of sending a cut of her new documentary film. Soon afterwards, she is notified by a colleague that a hacker is sending explicit pictures that she had on her laptop to her contacts and demands he be paid $2400 USD or he will send the pictures to all of her contacts. As the hacker slowly escalates the threat, Patricia must navigate her own personal action on the case while dealing with the judicial process to figure out if she should pay or stay strong and force the hacker’s hand.
The film is very personal and the filmmaking reflects that. The majority of the footage comes from documents, videos, social media posts and texts that Patricia actually sent and received. Many sequences use multiple vertically-shot phone videos as B-Roll to establish Patricia’s location and journey during this time. The film uses the simplicity and iconography of texts and emojis to express the most powerful words of the film and uses the text as imagery really well at multiple points in the film. It is purposefully restrained as the footage of Patricia will often cut away early or be simple scenes such as her sitting at her desk. She really lets the story and the events do the talking and the cross-cutting between the events happening (and her stern face) help convey the emotion without using music or dramatic breakdowns. In doing so, she creates something truly effective as you see this woman dare to be vulnerable and stand up for herself, even if it invites great shame and embarrassment.
My Sextortion Diary is playing at HotDocs ’24. For more information, click here.
