Leah Manasseh

I bleed

In this personal documentary, Leah goes on a journey of exploration, and healing, her first period left an emotional scar that hasn’t healed in twenty years. Her objective is to create a new narrative around periods for her daughter, which she knows she can only accomplish by freeing herself. Her insistence of digging beneath the surface and her refusal to be limited by patriarchy’s negative views on periods lead her to look into her own family story and explore the concept of trans generational trauma.

Leila and the Cigarette

In early September 2011, Leah decided to go to Lebanon to film her grandmother. Two weeks after the end of filming, her grandmother died of metastatic lung cancer. It would take her 12 years to regain the courage to review their last conversations. Through memories and poems she draws the portrait of her grandmother paying homage to her colorful spirit that made her unique.