Leah Galant '15 | Ithaca College

Sundance Ignite Fellow & Independent Filmmaker

During Leah's time at Ithaca College, she was named one of Variety Magazine's "110 Students to Watch in Film and Media" in their April 2015 issue. After graduation, she worked at Ithaca-based Photosynthesis Productions as an associate producer working on a variety of documentaries, and she was named a 2017 Sundance Ignite Fellow. Sundance Ignite is a year long competitive program that offers mentorship and industry experience to emerging filmmakers. Galant was also the inaugural Sally Burns Shenkman Women Filmmaker Fellow at the Jacob Burns Film Center, where she completed Death Metal Grandma.

Roughly a year after its debut at the SXSW Film Festival, Death Metal Grandma took home the award for best documentary at the American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival. The film follows nonagenarian Holocaust survivor Inge Ginsberg as she turns her poetry into heavy metal music and auditions for America’s Got Talent.

Leah's documentary, The Provider, screened at SxSW, follows the story of an abortion doctor, Dr. Shannon Carr, who travels in order to perform services in restrictive parts of the country. The Provider was also screened at Palm Springs Short Fest and won awards at the Student Emmys, the National Film Festival for Talented Youth, and the Visions Film Festival. Past projects include a documentary film about prison rehabilitation and re-entry, Beyond the Wall, that was screened across the country.

She is currently a freelance filmmaker living in New York specializing in the directing, producing, editing, assistant editing, and creation of non-profit videos.

Death Metal Grandma

Leah Galant’s documentary, Death Metal Grandma, which debuted at the SXSW Film Festival and can be seen on the New York Times website, follows the 96-year-old Holocaust survivor as she turns her poetry into heavy metal music and auditions for America’s Got Talent.

“I wanted to show that beyond the spectacle of Death Metal Grandma lies an incredible, resilient, and fierce woman named Inge Ginsberg,” said Galant, who studied documentary studies and production at the college’s Roy H. Park School of Communications. “Throughout the filming process, I was privileged to be the recipient of so much of her wisdom—much of which ended up in the film. I also wanted to highlight the importance of intergenerational relationships, which Inge and I both benefited from enormously.”

Galant was not the only IC alumna working on the film. Stephanie Khoury '15 was credited for cinematography and editing. Galant and Khoury previously collaborated on another documentary, Kitty and Ellen, which screened at Doc NYC in 2017. Pete Quandt '15 and Leroy Farrell '15 also received cinematography credits on Death Metal Grandma, and Caleb Oaks '15 was credited as the composer.