Bravery, Betrayal, and Baring It All
Body Parts traces the evolution of “sex” on screen from a woman’s perspective, exposing the realities behind some of Hollywood’s most iconic scenes and spotlighting the creators leading the way for change. Innovative and incisive, the film demystifies the often-hidden processes of filming intimacy, from auditions and contracts to choreography and closed-set practices, revealing how these routines have long reinforced unequal power dynamics and entrenched the dominance of the heterosexual male gaze.
Featuring candid interviews with Hollywood legends, acclaimed performers, and visionary creators—including Jane Fonda, Rosanna Arquette, Joey Soloway, Angela Robinson, Karyn Kusama, Rose McGowan, Alexandra Billings, Emily Meade, David Simon, Stacy Rukeyser, and Tanya Saracho—Body Parts situates today’s conversations within a century of film history, illustrated with clips ranging from Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies to contemporary prestige television. Voices from across the industry recount the toll of exploitation while also celebrating the rise of intimacy coordination and other reforms that place consent and safety at the center of artistic practice.
Part exposé and part film-history lesson, Body Parts challenges viewers to reconsider not just how intimate scenes are made, but how they shape cultural attitudes about sexuality, desire, and consent. By investigating the past and spotlighting a new generation of imagemakers, filmmakers Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Helen Hood Scheer point toward a more inclusive and equitable future for women on set and on screen.
Far from sensational, Body Parts is a thoughtful classroom resource that reveals how film and television shape ideas about sex, consent, and power while offering students a rigorous yet accessible way to examine representation and media influence. Safe, timely, and thought-provoking, the film equips students to critically examine the media they encounter every day — making it an invaluable addition to courses across the humanities and social sciences.
(CONTAINS IMAGES OF SEX AND NUDITY)
Kristy Guevara-Flanagan is a documentary filmmaker whose work spans experimental and traditional nonfiction forms, often centering on gender, power, and representation. Her films have screened widely at festivals including Tribeca, SXSW, Hot Docs, Sundance, and DC/DOX, and have been broadcast on Starz, the BBC, and PBS.
Her feature Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines (2013) traces the evolution of Wonder Woman as a cultural icon and aired on PBS’s Independent Lens. What Happened to Her (2016), a forensic meditation on the dead woman trope in Hollywood, premiered at Hot Docs and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Dallas International Film Festival. Mothertime (2018), a video diary of early motherhood, is distributed by Women Make Movies.
Her short film Águilas (2021), about volunteers searching for missing migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, won awards at SXSW, LALIFF, and Big Sky, was acquired by The New Yorker, and was shortlisted for an Academy Award. Her most recent feature, Body Parts (2022), investigates how sex scenes are made in Hollywood and is currently streaming on Starz and the BBC.
Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Guevara-Flanagan co-founded the Abortion Clinic Film Collective. She subsequently made the short film, As Long As We Can (2024), about a day-in-the-life of an Phoenix abortion clinic which premiered at DC/DOX. She is currently in production on Taking the Reins, a feature exploring the reinvention of the cowboy by marginalized communities; the film is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
She is a Professor at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television, where she leads the MFA Documentary program.
Helen Hood Scheer is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, freelance producer, and Associate Professor at California State University Long Beach, where she spearheads the Creative Nonfiction program and earned the CSULB Distinguished Teaching Award. Helen wears many hats including producer, archival producer, and consulting producer on documentaries for other directors, as well as producer, director, cinematographer, and sometimes editor on her own projects. Genres and styles span portraits of artists and public figures to observational docs about sports and culture to hybrid features. Films she worked on have screened theatrically; been broadcast on networks including HBO, PBS, Showtime, BBC, Starz, ABC, A&E and National Geographic; and been invited to a variety of venues including Tribeca, SXSW, Hot Docs, the Getty Museum, the British Film Institute, and the U.S. Department of State’s American Film Showcase. Her work has been funded by Sundance, California Humanities, International Documentary Association, Level Forward, The Harnisch Foundation, The deNovo Initiative and more.
Select works include Producing and Archival Producing Body Parts (dir. by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan); Producing/Directing/Filming JUMP! (5x Audience Award wins) and The Apothecary (Student Academy Award) ; Producing TV specials on James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sam Phillips; and serving as Consulting Producer on The Tallest Dwarf (dir. by Julie Wyman; 2025, Tribeca and PBS) How to Have an American Baby (dir. by Leslie Tai; 2023, PBS); and For Madmen Only (dir. by Heather Ross; 2020, called “funny and poignant” by The Hollywood Reporter).
LEVEL FORWARD is an ecosystem of storytellers, entrepreneurs, and social change-makers balancing artistic vision, social impact, and stakeholder return. We work on project and industry levels to expand the access and opportunity of creative excellence in pursuit of equity and economic transformation, by developing, producing, financing, and distributing entertainment for screen and stage. Films include Body Parts, The Year Between, The Assistant, Holler, Rebel Hearts, Topside, You Resemble Me; and on stage, the Tony-nominated POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, What the Constitution Means to Me, Tony-winner Oklahoma!, the most Tony-nominated play in history Slave Play, and the most Tony-nominated musical of 2020-2021 Jagged Little Pill.
“Body Parts is not simply a behind-the-scenes look at on-screen sex, nudity, and the necessity of intimacy coordination. The documentary also serves as a broader crash course on Hollywood cinema's often troubling representations of female bodies, desire, and agency. … Though Body Parts’ initial draw for some audience members may be frequent appearances by women actors such as Alexandra Billings, Jane Fonda, and Rose McGowan, it also features the perspectives and expertise of a broad array of women working in film production, ranging from writers and producers to intimacy coordinators and hair and makeup artists. It is through the combination of these voices that the film becomes a fantastic primer for those interested in a Hollywood history of sex and women’s agency on screen. As such, it possesses great pedagogical potential.”
— Video Librarian
“Astonishing … What makes Kristy Guevara-Flanagan’s documentary so remarkable is its steadfastly non-puritanical approach. Despite the horror stories, many actors and filmmakers remain enthusiastic about depicting intimacy and shaking up representations of desire.”
— The Guardian
“Insightful, comprehensive, and thought-provoking … Does a remarkably thorough job in covering such a wide range of areas … It’s timely, valuable work."
— Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times