“I Can’t Afford to Let Cliches Live in the Cinema I Make”: Leilah Weinraub on Shakedown

Leilah Weinraub’s 2018 Shakedown, which began playing Metrograph on June 17th (and has been held over through June 30th due to high demand), has been touted by Variety as the “the first-ever non-adult film” to be picked up by Pornhub. Yet it could also be called the sex site’s first-ever Berlinale-premiering and Tate/ICA/MoMA PS1/Whitney Biennial-screened acquisition. And likely the smut streamer’s first-ever labor of love release as well. Indeed, Shakedown is a film that defies any easy categorization. Ostensibly a longform cinematic exploration (crafted over 15 years starting in 2002) of the titular, mid-city, Los Angeles, Black lesbian strip club, the doc is likewise a study in the invention of identity, family and community — especially for those marginalized by both blood relatives and society. It’s also a heck of a risk-taking endeavor: Neither a feminist film nor an easily digestible depiction of Black women for that matter, the true (and unapologetically self-proclaimed) stars of the doc are just as comfortable expressing sexual fluidity (the legendary dancer Egypt reminisces about the time before she was gay) as they are popping a bare booty for the lens.

So to read my interview with the intersectional industry vet behind the lens - a NYC-based native of LA whose unconventional career has taken her from being mentored by Tony Kaye, to working with Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, to serving as CEO of the street-wear fashion brand Hood By Air - visit Filmmaker magazine.