Claire, a bright but restless 25-year-old, dives into an exploration of kink with the encouragement of her best friend, Skye. What begins as playful curiosity on a dating app quickly spirals when Claire matches with Leo, a charismatic older man who lures her into a captivity that blurs the line between coercion and desire.

Months later, Claire resurfaces: bruised, haunted, and back in the Bushwick apartment she once shared with Skye. Torn between the safety of home and the dark pull of her submission, Claire struggles to adjust to her old life.

Through fractured timelines of present-day recovery and flashbacks of captivity, Stockholm dissects friendship, sexuality, and the unsettling psychology of power. The proof-of-concept offers a chilling glimpse into Claire’s paradoxical truth, where survival and surrender are indistinguishable, and freedom might not be what she wants after all.

SYNOPSIS

STOCKHOLM was born from a desire to wrestle with the blurred lines between power, intimacy, and survival. It is an erotic thriller on its surface, but at its core, it’s a psychological maze around consent. Like so many women, my relationship to consent, sex and power dynamics is complicated.

When the writers came to me with their story, it was illuminating to not feel alone in this experience but also heartbreaking to know this abuse is universal. I wanted to put the audience into the headspace that most women have felt before and push it to its extremes, without making a caricature of our trauma.

There’s a point where trauma consumes us, where identity feels rewritten by what has been taken from us. STOCKHOLM lives in that liminal space between control and surrender, between captivity and connection. By confronting these contradictions through cinema, I wanted to make a film that doesn’t give easy answers but instead lingers in the discomfort, because that is where truth lives.

DIRECTORS STATEMENT

ABOUT KAITLYN MIKAYLA

Kaitlyn Mikayla is a writer-director, photographer, and Sundance alum whose work fuses striking visuals with raw, character-driven storytelling. Her directorial debut, RAGAMUFFIN, a deeply personal narrative drawn from her childhood racing motocross, world-premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The award-winning short had a robust international run, screening across the U.S.and in seven countries worldwide, including at the Cannes Film Festival’s Emerging Filmmaker Showcase. The film was an Oscar Qualifier for the 98th Academy Awards.

Before moving into narrative filmmaking, Kaitlyn built a celebrated career as a photographer and commercial director, with print work appearing in The Wall Street Journal, PAPER Magazine, New York Times bestsellers, and on Times Square billboards. She has directed and shot international campaigns for major fashion brands.

In 2025, Kaitlyn was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” She aims to help close the gap for female directors and bring gritty, subversive stories of badass young women to the big screen.

Secret Beach is a full-service production house based in Brooklyn, NY. We’re proud to develop and champion dynamic stories from idea to final cut. Together with our network of talented creatives, we create projects that are thoughtful, innovative, and unforgettable.

Secret Beach was founded by Jake Silbermann and Erica Pappas. Combined, we’ve produced bold new theater, hit music videos, large and small scale branded media, and award winning, Oscar-qualifying short films. Our first feature film is in post-production.

ABOUT SECRET BEACH