Scripts

scripts available upon request

Click image to open pitch deck

Based on the life of attorney Stephanie Zoe Warncke a.k.a. dominatrix Domina Hera. A one hour drama series  A multicultural female-centric cast 

Libertine: [lib-er-teen] from Latin lībertīnus freedman. One who is morally or sexually unrestraint, beyond behavior sanctified by the larger society. Free-thinker on matters.

Series logline: A convalescing young attorney on the rise, suffers the perils of being a woman in today’s workforce when she meets five enigmatic ladies who work in a BDSM dungeon. Their refreshing honesty to share their chaotic lives sparks a genuine friendship, propelling the counselor into the bizarre world of dominatrix.

Principle Cast

Zoe (27) protagonist, talented attorney, tortured soul

Cherice (19) confidante, Lolita, sociopath

The Duchess (50)  mentor, madam of the dungeon, matriarch

Jade (29) confidante, dominatrix, sex goddess, joker

Betty Galore (23) submissive, in the closet, troubled sexpot

China Blue (30) transgender, dominatrix, lost, addict

The series follows the chaotic lives of six women struggling to navigate life, searching for their identities and self-acceptance, who have found friendship, strength, and freedom amongst themselves on a path of their own choosing, working in a BDSM dungeon.

The first question everyone asks Zoe is, “Why she became a dominatrix?” She didn’t need the money!

How many people have found themselves asking, “What the hell am I doing with my life!?”  “How did I get here?” “Is this what I want to do the rest of my life?”  – Probably a lot. How many people have actually changed their lives after saying it? Probably not so many. This is the question Zoe asks herself mid-season one.

Libertine has two worlds, a daytime world, and a nighttime world.

The daytime world: Our protagonist, attorney Zoe Marx’s end game is to advocate justice for the underserved and champion civil rights law. In turn, Zoe heals herself, being the voice for others that was never there for her as a child. Zoe carries the deep trauma of an unaddressed abusive childhood. She’s never had any sense of normalcy, stability, or love in her life, as she saw in other’s. Now on her own, Zoe has a chance to be like everyone else. She wants to feel love, and to have meaningful and intimate relationships, but she has no reference, just a snapshot of what she thinks a normal life looks like.

Zoe’s career launches into the political spotlight by proving herself a talented civil rights litigator again and again in socially relevant legal cases ripped right from the headlines. Nevertheless, as a woman today, Zoe experiences the common practices of disparity, marginalization, misogyny, sexual assault, stonewalling whistleblowers and the covering it up by the ominous corporate institution. As well as the disheartening normalized wheeling and dealing of politics and a rigged system of justice.  Zoe compromises her principles to succeed, and to be loved for the sake of fitting into the status quo, losing sight of her goals, causing conflict to build inside of her.

The nighttime world is a world not seen before. Libertine looks behind the closed doors of a BDSM dungeon and the personal lives of women who work there. The series also explores men’s and women’s attitude and behavior toward sex with adult situations and constant alluring visuals of sexualities in context, meant to provoke thought and identification in a world where everyone has sex issues.

The women at the dungeon are the Duchess (50 but says she’s 40) a woman of grace and dignity, madame of the dungeon, tried every plastic surgeon in town. Has a bad habit of dating young penniless Casanovas. She has global powerful friends. Jade, (28) a seasoned dominatrix who becomes Zoe’s confidante – a free spirited party girl, with a questionable ambition to marry into money. She gets engaged to the Duchess’s plastic surgeon to find; he’s being busted for not being a real doctor. Betty Galore (24) a slave/submissive. Columbia grad student.  Her Park Avenue parents, and fiancé have no idea she’s gay. She assists the doms in any function to her enjoyment. China Blue (30) Pilipino, pre-op transgender, born a boy, raised as a girl to be sold into prostitution as a ladyboy. She has a drug problem, and her drug dealer boyfriend runs a Chinatown casino and house of prostitution. When sober, China’s a big draw for clients to the dungeon. And then there’s Cherice (19)– Lolita. Zoe meets her in AA. Cherice proves herself a loyal friend. She says she’s a model/actress. It’s a lie that seems harmless at first. She buys followers, likes, and comments on social media to perpetuate that persona. Her lies become disturbingly more fantastical. She’s actually an online #onlyfans cam-girl and escort, a femme fatale, and psychopath, duping men out of their credit cards and bank accounts. An amateur con artist that no one including the FBI can stop.

In the pilot, we meet our protagonist Zoe, one year ago, on her first court case. Zoe gets China Blue, charged with prostitution and possession freed on civil rights grounds, grabbing the attention of the Duchess, who watches the proceedings, also getting the attention of the partners in the firm. Zoe has arrived. That doesn’t stop a misogynistic colleague from inviting Zoe to his apartment to prep a deposition then, offering to help advance her career in exchange for a sexual encounter, turning into an upsetting physical incident. Zoe pursues pressing charges, but with conspiring office politics at work, Zoe’s boss, Holly awards Zoe a high-profile civil rights case, under the guise of her recent impressive litigation, but it’s bait to drop the charges. Ultimately, Zoe must choose to drop her complaint of her co-worker’s full-frontal indiscretion or wait for charges to be settled in house before being allowed to take any cases, marking Zoe’s first exposure to the disappointments in the law ahead.

Outside of the office, things aren’t much better for Zoe when we meet her. She’s having an ongoing affair with her boyfriend’s brother behind his back. Yet Zoe agrees to move in with her boyfriend because she’s afraid of being alone and unloved which derives from her mentally sick mother’s abuse of Zoe as a child. Hope to win her mother’s love still dominates Zoe’s life.

Zoe meets dominatrix Jade and slave Betty Galore on a lark when her and her boyfriend, attend the Libertine Ball, at billionaire Damon Chamberlains Gold Coast estate. There amidst the perverse spectacle of BDSM. Jade’s refreshing honesty and candor allows Zoe to connect and experience friendship, an attractive and vital missing piece from Zoe’s life and a welcoming departure from the inherent practices of the daytime world. The pilot ends when Betty is able to give Zoe the Duchess’s invitation for tea at the dungeon in thanks for representing China Blue in court.

Through the first season, Zoe gets to know with the women of the dungeon, as they share their deepest struggles and fears. Zoe contemplates the fundamental flaw of her life plan; to fit it and be like everyone else requires her to sacrifice her own identity. With each decision Zoe claims back for herself, the day world responds unkindly to her break from conformity. She hits a demoralizing bottom, losing her job, under investigation, committed to a psych ward, held up to ridicule and engagement off. To top it off, her grandmother who protected her through childhood, dies. All that remain are her allies from the dungeon. Ultimately, her fall from grace frees her to build a life of her own choosing. Zoe takes back control of her life. She no longer wants to be a part of the system, but she wants to change it. Once vindicated, she begins her own humble law firm working as a lawyer by day and launches herself on an extraordinary adventure, working as a dominatrix by night.

SCRIPT IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST