The four-part docuseries Seduced: Inside The NXIVM Cult will premiere on local streaming service STAN on the same day as it premieres in the U.S.
Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult takes viewers through a deeply intimate, first-person account of the self-help group turned destructive sex cult NXIVM.
Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult chronicles the extraordinary and harrowing journey of India Oxenberg — the daughter of Hollywood actress Catherine Oxenberg and a descendant of European royalty — who was seduced into the modern-day sex-slave cult NXIVM. More than 17,000 people, including India, enrolled in NXIVM’s “Executive Success Programs,” a front for the cult and a hunting ground for its leader, master predator Keith Raniere.
Women in DOS, a secret master-slave society within NXIVM, were sex-trafficked and branded with a cauterizing iron. Both about a mother trying to save her daughter and recovery from trauma, the series follows India’s seduction, indoctrination, enslavement, escape — and her role as “co-conspirator” in assisting the U.S. government with bringing down Raniere and his criminal enterprise.
In addition to being a rigorous and unsparing examination of India’s abuse and her own culpability, it explores how India and a chorus of other women are still grappling to make sense of their experience. The series also showcases extensive insider footage and exposes the inner circle of enablers around Keith Raniere.
The series comes from the filmmaking team of Cecilia Peck and Inbal B. Lessner — collaborators on the Emmy®-nominated Brave Miss World — who serve as executive producers with Daniel Voll, Alexandra Milchan and India Oxenberg. Peck also serves as director and Lessner serves as lead editor.
“I had been targeted for recruitment by NXIVM, so the subject was of personal interest,” Peck said. “In many ways, India could be anyone’s daughter. She was a young woman victimised by a serial predator, and I wanted to find out how this 19-year-old girl had become indoctrinated. There was a fearless quality to her inquiry that we were drawn to.”
“The most common question people have is ‘Why didn’t she get up and leave when no one was forcing her to stay?’”
Lessner adds.
