For much of the 20th century and for all of the 21st century, the Western world has been obsessed with body image. Kim Farrant’s confronting documentary, Naked on the Inside, asks a simple but audacious question: “Beyond our clothes and skin, who are we?”

Farrant turns her camera on five extra-ordinary people from around the world who reveal their bodies and share their secrets.

In Taiwan, a woman lives a covert life as a man, binding her double-D-cup breasts each day before going off to teach Sunday School. On the Sunshine Coast of Australia, a mother-of-two fights the breast cancer she feels she unconsciously created by hiding an affair from her husband. In San Francisco, a supermodel obsesses to achieve bodily perfection, while a 158kg “fat activist” comes out … big, loud and proud. And in the UK, a dancer with no legs falls in love for the very first time.

Superficially these five characters share nothing in common. In Naked on the Inside, profound connections arise as they each create an intimate series of clothed and naked portraits before the camera. One by one, they reveal their unique relationship with their body … it has either served them well, brought them pain or fame, is at odds with who they are, in decay, or deemed “perfect” and “beautiful”. Stripped bare, in their bedrooms and private spaces, with the veil of clothing removed there is nothing left to hide.

As a filmmaker, Farrant has built a reputation for compassionately exposing the “unguarded moment” in her subjects. For Naked on the Inside, Farrent realised that if she wasn’t prepared to let the spotlight fall on her as well as on her subjects, she wasn’t going to get the kind of material the film’s title boldly promised. “My first interviewee, Dave, a dancer with no legs, began to shut down after being naked in front of me after only a few days. This was hardly surprising, I suppose. What I needed to do was level the playing field, so I suggested he film and interview me naked. From here on in, it became integral to my process with all the subjects.”

Sunday School teacher Marcus Van, artist Rick Stray, supermodel Carré Otis, fat activist Shirley Sheffield and dancer Dave Toole agreed to take part in what Farrent describes as “a mediation on the soul”.