Carte Blanche and Analoga Co. have partnered on Ecdysiast, an erotic psychological thriller from writer Noel Leon (A Comedy of Errors), directing duo Adam VillaSenor and Reza Ghassami (In Full Bloom), and producers Cooper Musser (The Roswell Report) and Mickey Gooch (The Trial of the Chicago 7).

Ecdysiast follows a struggling queer actress thrust into the lead of an avant-garde production of The Seagull. As her paranoia of being replaced intensifies, she turns to self-commodification and digital voyeurism as a means of control—only to spiral into a fractured double life. Performance, identity, and reality dissolve in this surreal, neon-lit fever dream of strip club and Broadway stages where the eyes never leave.

With Ecdysiast (meaning striptease performer), writer Noel Leon channels her own experiences as a former exotic dancer and Playboy model into a psychological horror film investigating internet fame, voyeurism, and the unsettling power of being watched in the digital age.

Backed by Carte Blanche, who produced The Brutalist and The Testament of Ann Lee, the film promises a dystopian, nightmarish exploration of what it means to be an artist in the attention economy. “Social media promises empowerment,” says Leon. “But it can also strip away authorship. Suddenly, your image belongs to everyone. The moment you’re being watched, something shifts—your image takes on a life of its own, and you risk disappearing inside of it.”

With the script inspired by her real life, Leon draws from an eclectic career defined by various modes of performance. After starting off as a competitive figure skater, she worked as a stripper before breaking into stand-up in New York and LA comedy clubs, while being featured on Playboy covers internationally. Leon recently made her directorial debut writing and co-directing A Comedy of Errors (2025), a similarly personal film about a queer standup comic struggling with addiction. Ecdysiast is adapted from her upcoming debut novel, Call Me What You Want, which is set to be released by Trident Media.

Ecdysiast is slated to film this summer in New York City.