Storytelling for the Screen: The Moon and Back

Leah Bleich is an LA-based director, producer, and writer. A mentee of director Cathy Yan (Birds of Prey), Leah recently completed her feature directorial debut, The Moon and Back, as one of five filmmakers selected out of over 350 applicants for “The Six Feet Apart Experiment,” a groundbreaking filmmaking competition from Wayfarer Studios. Leah was a selected director for MTV Entertainment Studios’s inaugural First Time Director’s Initiative, during which she wrote and directed an ad campaign for Paramount that aired nationally on MTV and Comedy Central. She recently sold a six-episode scripted podcast (Sirens) to AudioUp Media, and wrote a feature on assignment for MarVista Entertainment. She directed a two-episode docuseries for PBS and Roadtrip Nation, during which she lived in a bright green RV and drove from New Orleans to New York City.

In addition to her directing experience, Leah has a background in film and TV development. She began her career in the mailroom at Creative Artists Agency before becoming a Development Executive at Solstice Studios, where she worked closely on the films Unhinged with Russell Crowe and Hypnotic with Ben Affleck. She most recently worked in Comedy TV Development at Just For Laughs, where she produced projects with talent including Marlon Wayans, Lil Rel Howery, Diplo, Pete Holmes, Nicole Byer, and Nikki Glaser. She loves to tell stories about bizarre, wonderful, flawed, and extraordinary characters, and nothing makes her happier than making audiences laugh and cry at the same time.

Ross Melnick is Professor of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He was named an Academy Film Scholar and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow for his book Hollywood’s Embassies: How Movie Theaters Projected American Power Around the World (Columbia University Press, 2022), which received the Richard Wall Memorial Award from the Theatre Library Association. He is also the author of American Showman: Samuel ‘Roxy’ Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry (CUP, 2012), co-editor of Rediscovering U.S. Newsfilm: Cinema, Television, and the Archive (AFI/Routledge, 2018), and co-author of Cinema Treasures (MBI, 2004), inspired by the website (cinematreasures.org), which he co-founded 25 years ago. His research has appeared in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Film History, The Moving Image, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Aniki, and in numerous edited collections.