Leilah Weinraub

{{Short description|American filmmaker, conceptual artist and former CEO}}

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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1979}}

| birth_place = Los Angeles, California

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| alma_mater = Antioch College, Bard College

| known_for = Hood by Air

| notable_works = SHAKEDOWN (2018)

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Leilah Weinraub (born 1979) is an American filmmaker, conceptual artist, and the former chief executive officer of the fashion brand Hood By Air.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/leilah-weinraubs-radical-cinema-of-privacy-in-shakedown|title=Leilah Weinraub's Radical Cinema of Privacy in "Shakedown"|last1=Da Costa|first1=Cassie|date=16 March 2018|magazine=The New Yorker|accessdate=11 November 2018}} In 2018, she was named a Sundance Institute Art of Nonfiction Fellow.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sundance.org/blogs/news/2018-sundance-art-of-nonfiction-fellows-grantees|title=Sundance Institute Names 2018 Art of Nonfiction Fellows and Grantees|date=October 23, 2018|website=www.sundance.org|language=English|access-date=2019-04-01}}

Biography

Weinraub was born in Los Angeles{{Cite web|url=https://www.artforum.com/print/201106/leilah-weinraub-28345|title=Leilah Weinraub|website=www.artforum.com|date=3 June 2011 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-01}} to an African-American textile designer mother from Compton and a Jewish pediatrician father from Fort Wayne, Indiana.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/hood-by-airs-radical-streetwear|title=Hood By Air's Radically Aggressive Streetwear|last=Glazek|first=Christopher|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2016-08-29|access-date=2019-04-01|language=en|issn=0028-792X}}

Weinraub attended one year at an agricultural high school in Israel{{Cite web|url=https://www.standardhotels.com/culture/shakedown-leilah-weinraub-documentary-the-whitney|title=Scenes from the Underground: Leilah Weinraub's 'Shakedown'|website=www.standardhotels.com|date=28 August 2017 |language=en|access-date=2019-04-01}} before returning to the United States and legally emancipating herself from her parents. She later attended Antioch College{{cite web|url=https://www.wmagazine.com/story/leilah-weinraub-hood-by-air-ceo-film-whitney-biennial-interview|title=Hood by Air's Leilah Weinraub on the Debut of Her Film About a Black Lesbian Strip Club|last1=Eckardt|first1=Stephanie|date=23 May 2017|website=W Magazine|language=en|accessdate=11 November 2018}} and dropped out of the film program at Bard College.{{Cite web|url=http://www.thecut.com/2015/02/hood-by-air.html|title=Inside the Ambiguously Gendered, Pan-Racial, In-Your-Face Rolling Party of Hood by Air|date=2015-02-12|website=The Cut|language=en|access-date=2019-04-01}}

Career

In 1998, Weinraub met American History X 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 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, premiered at the 2018 Berlinale{{cite web|url=https://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/2018/02_programm_2018/02_Filmdatenblatt_2018_201816081.html#tab=filmStills|title=Shakedown|website=www.berlinale.de|accessdate=11 November 2018}} and has subsequently been screened at various art institutions and film festivals including the Tate, London; ICA, London; MoMA PS1, New York; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; True/False Film Festival, Missouri; Sheffield Doc/Fest, England; Images Festival, Toronto; Frameline Film Festival, San Francisco and Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York.{{Cite web|url=http://gavinbrown.biz/home/exhibitions|title=Gavin Brown's enterprise|website=gavinbrown.biz|access-date=2019-04-01}} A shorter version was screened as part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial.{{cite web|url=https://whitney.org/Events/LeilahWeinraub|title=Leilah Weinraub|website=whitney.org|publisher=The Whitney Museum of American Art|language=en|accessdate=11 November 2018}}

In March 2020, the film was released on the website Pornhub, the first non-pornographic film to be shown there.{{Cite web|url=https://variety.com/2020/film/news/pornhub-to-release-first-ever-non-adult-film-about-black-lesbian-strip-club-culture-exclusive-1203522017/|title = Pornhub to Release First Ever Non-Adult Film, About Black Lesbian Strip Club Culture (EXCLUSIVE)|date = 3 March 2020}}

=Hood by Air=

In 2012, Weinraub began working on the critically acclaimed fashion label Hood By Air, 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.