Leilah Weinraub (born 1979) is an American filmmaker, conceptual artist, and the former chief executive officer of the fashion brand

Hood By Air Hood By Air is a high fashion brand based in New York City first launched in 2006 and active to the present day, with the exception of a hiatus between early 2017 – 2019. The brand was co-founded by designers, Shayne Oliver and Raul Lopez (desig ...

. In 2018 she was named a

Sundance Institute Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers f ...

Art of Nonfiction Fellow.

Biography

Weinraub was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

to an African-American textile designer mother from

Compton Compton may refer to: Places Canada * Compton (electoral district), a former Quebec federal electoral district * Compton (provincial electoral district), a former Quebec provincial electoral district now part of Mégantic-Compton * Compton, Que ...

and a Jewish

pediatrician Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

father from

Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

. Weinraub attended one year at an agricultural high school in Israel before returning to the United States and legally emancipating herself from her parents. She later attended

Antioch College Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its f ...

and dropped out of the film program at

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...

Career

In 1998 Weinraub met

American History X ''American History X'' is a 1998 American crime drama film directed by Tony Kaye and written by David McKenna. The film stars Edward Norton and Edward Furlong as two brothers from Los Angeles who are involved in the white power skinhead and ne ...

director Tony Kaye while working at the Los Angeles Boutique Maxfield's. In exchange for Kaye paying her Antioch tuition, Weinraub assisted him on his project Lake of Fire.

SHAKEDOWN

In 2002—at the age of 23—Weinraub began shooting Shakedown, a Black

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

strip club in the Mid-City neighborhood of Los Angeles. Over the course of 6 years, Weinraub accumulated over 400 hours of footage. The resulting documentary feature, ''

SHAKEDOWN Shakedown may refer to: * Shakedown (continuum mechanics), a type of plastic deformation * Shakedown (testing) or a shakedown cruise, a period of testing undergone by a ship, airplane or other craft before being declared operational * Extortion, ...

'', premiered at the 2018

Berlinale The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

and has subsequently been screened at various art institutions and film festivals including the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London; ICA, London;

MoMA PS1 MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, th ...

, New York; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva;

True/False Film Festival True/False Film Fest is an annual documentary film festival that takes place in Columbia, Missouri. The Fest occurs on the first weekend in March (sometimes beginning in late February), with films being shown from Thursday evening to Sunday nig ...

, Missouri;

Sheffield Doc/Fest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The Festival includes film sc ...

, England;

Images Festival The Images Festival is a yearly event devoted to independent and experimental film, video art, new media and media installation that takes place each spring in Toronto. History The Images festival was founded in 1987, originally conceived as ...

, Toronto;

Frameline Film Festival The Frameline Film Festival (aka San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival) (formerly San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival; San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival) began as a storefront event in 1976. The first ...

, San Francisco and

Gavin Brown's Enterprise Gavin Brown's enterprise was an art gallery with venues in New York City and Rome owned by Gavin Brown between 1994 and 2020. In 2020, it merged with Gladstone Gallery. History Broome Street The gallery was established by Gavin Brown in 1994 on ...

, New York. A shorter version was screened as part of the 2017

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

. In March 2020 the film was released on the website

Pornhub Pornhub is a Canadian-owned internet pornography website. It is one of several pornographic video-streaming websites owned by MindGeek. , Pornhub is the 10th-most-trafficked website in the world and the second-most-trafficked adult website aft ...

, the first non-pornographic film to be shown there.

Hood by Air

In 2012, Weinraub began working on the critically acclaimed fashion label

, eventually taking on the title of chief executive officer. She held this position until the brand's hiatus in 2017. Weinraub was openly skeptical of the brand's celebrity endorsements and kept the company closed to outside investors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weinraub, Leilah 1979 births Living people African-American Jews American documentary filmmakers African-American artists African-American film directors Antioch College alumni LGBT African Americans Jewish film people Lesbian artists LGBT film directors Artists from Los Angeles LGBT Jews 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people

Biography

Career

SHAKEDOWN

Hood by Air

See also

References