The SECRET Life of Secretaries
Logline: The Secret Life of Secretaries is an absurd mockumentary from the early 2000s that captures four dysfunctional secretaries barely holding it together. Now, twenty years later, we revisit their lives and the chaos they never quite left behind.
Synopsis: The Secret Life of Secretaries began as a guerrilla-style mockumentary in 2004, then disappeared into a box in a garage until it was rediscovered twenty years later. Revived with its original cast in 2024, the film becomes a rare time capsule of dysfunction and comedy, centering on Shante, the only Black woman in an office full of white women. Through her sharp perspective, the film lays bare the absurd rivalries, buried tensions, and rigid hierarchies of office life, asking whether we ever truly change, or simply keep repeating the same chaos over time.
Trailer
Director’s Statement:
Life of Secretaries began one day, guerrilla-style, as a mockumentary. Soon after, I became a new mother and completely forgot about the film until I rediscovered the footage twenty years later in a box in my garage. I tracked down the lead actress, and to my surprise, she agreed to reprise her role two decades later, creating a rare time capsule of dysfunction and comedy.
At the center of the story is Shante, the only Black woman in an office full of white women, whose perspective grounds the film’s humor and truth. The mockumentary captures the absurdities of office life: four secretaries trapped together, navigating petty rivalries and buried tensions. Shante’s anger and frustration cut through the comedy, exposing how race and power dynamics play out in even the most mundane workplaces.
My work gravitates toward female-driven stories about belonging, invisibility, and being misunderstood. Having worked as a secretary myself, I know what it feels like to be dismissed in a space built on hierarchy. Through Shante, I wanted to give voice to the character who refuses to fit the mold, and whose outsider perspective makes her both the target and the truth-teller.
Ultimately, the film asks: Do we ever truly change, or are we always wrestling with the same inequities and chaos, regardless of how much time has passed?
