REMEDY follows a young woman from the underground kink clubs of New York City into the world of commodified BDSM where workers are paid to embody the sexual and psychological fantasies of complete strangers. A sexually submissive woman finds a job as a dominatrix at a commercial dungeon, working under the pseudonym “Mistress Remedy.” When an unscrupulous night manager convinces Remedy to session with dominant clients, where she is the slave for the hour, she agrees in return for better pay. Remedy quickly realizes that her personal kinks do not prepare her for the pressures and risks of this side of the sexual service industry. Should she leave? Or should she stay and prove to everyone -- including herself-- that she can handle it?
Cheyenne Picardo received her BA in Film Studies and Creative Writing from Columbia College, determined to be a film critic and theorist. Then she fell in love with editing and documenting self-described freaks of the New York performance scene, eventually earning her MFA in Photography, Video and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. Picardo’s first feature film Remedy told the story of a pro-switch (dominatrix/submissive) at a commercial dungeon in New York City, currently distributed through Gravitas Venture and German theatrical distributor Deja-Vu. Picardo uses subjective storytelling techniques to explore sexuality, gender, mental health, memory, and marginalization. Her recent work includes Bob the Drag Queen’s Suspiciously Large Woman and Bob’s upcoming docu-comedy special A Queen for the People. In her limited spare time, Picardo also co-hosts and edits a podcast Terrific City about media portrayals of urban life in the 1970s with journalist Melissa Gira Grant. The first season, a response to the HBO series The Deuce, just wrapped in November. She hopes to harness the power of the mass-media’s influence over culture to destroy outdated and dangerous tropes. In short, she is committed as a filmmaker and film educator to dismantling the destructive legacy of the Hays Code, one frame at a time.