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LEYLA MANDEL
LEGACY
4:30 min, 2025
(in festival)
What appears to be an old 16mm film reel uncovered after years of being kept locked away, documents the degradation of the natural environment and its effects. Fires rage, floods swallow the frame, while chaos and destruction unfold in flickering fragments. This is all that’s left behind.
directed & shot & edited:
Leyla Mandel
WATCHING YOU (in progress)
11:13 min, 2025
Logging, measuring and documenting ICE detention
centers across the U.S.
directed & shot & edited: Leyla Mandel
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DAY OF WRATH - DEN HNEVU
7:43 min, 2024
Created in collaboration with CET FAMU film program in Prague.
A young girl, bored in the house learns to express herself through the paintings left behind by older generations in her family.
written & edited & concept: Leyla Mandel
written & directed: Melissa Romberg
directed: Thomas Grahling
dp: Stephen Cullina
Shot with Arriflex 435 on Kodak V3 500T 35mm film
winner best Student Film - the Fine Arts Film Festival (2025)
official selection - Massachusetts Film Festival (2025)
honorable mention - Experimental Forum (2025)
BALIK (trailer)
2:09 min, 2022
Trailer for a short experimental documentary that explores life in the small fishing town of Urla, Turkey.
directed & shot & edited: Leyla Mandel
shot with c100 camera
concept selected for Tufts Summer Scholar Grant + SMFA Deans Grant
ISOLATION
6:21 min, 2022
The lonely experience of the COVID-19 pandemic shown through the perspective of a little girl.
directed & shot & edited: Leyla Mandel
shot with Bolex 16mm film camera
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DO NOT PANIC;
EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL
by: Leyla Mandel shot in Cinema 4D, 2023
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WHICH SIDE
ARE YOU ON?
PART 1
2:11 min, 2020
A call for action for the environment from the perspective of a teenager. This film follows a Sunrise Movement High School Training Summit in Washington D.C. in 2019
directed & edited: Leyla Mandel
camera: Leyla Mandel & Maud Neeley
shot with 4K Blackmagic & iPhone camera
song: Pete Seger & Sunrise Movement
WHICH SIDE
ARE YOU ON?
PART 2
5:02 min, 2020
Interview with three Watertown High School activists regarding their work in the youth movement towards a cleaner future.
interviewees: Alex Theune, Lana Taffel & May Cort
directed & edited: Leyla Mandel
camera: Leyla Mandel
shot with 4K Blackmagic camera
WHICH SIDE
ARE YOU ON?
PART 3
5:04 min, 2021
Conversation with a first grader on what climate change is and why it's happening.
interviewee: Ophelia B.
directed & edited: Leyla Mandel
camera: Leyla Mandel
shot with 4K Blackmagic camera
DIVEST TUFTS
3:02 min, 2021
Using google maps to create a visual connection between the Tufts campus and my family home in Turkey.
written & directed & edited: Leyla Mandel
LEVANTINE COOKING
46:12 min, 2019-2020
Recipes and family stories by members of my family told in French, Turkish and English. Edited within, videos of summer life with the family and the Turkish landscape.
camera & edit: Leyla Mandel
GREY TO BLUE
13:40 min, 2018
A young woman's journey of finding a sustainable energy source through a small wind turbine, transforms her community.
written & directed & edited: Leyla Mandel
This film was submitted to the UN Sustainable Development Goals film competition.
EARTH DAY LETTER TO GOVERNOR BAKER
4:47 min, 2020
On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Watertown Sunrise put together a collaborative video explaining their goals in regards to the climate crisis, as well as asking Governor Baker to agree to a Massachusetts Green New Deal.
written & directed: WHS Strike Circle Recruitment Team
produced & edited: Leyla Mandel & Michael MacNeill
Contribution by 40 members of the WHS Sunrise hub, this video was produced while in quarantine during the pandemic. Each contributor filmed themselves in their domestic setting and uploaded the clip for editing.
SUNRISE WATERTOWN IS WIDE AWAKE
58 sec, 2020
Sunrise teens lead a strike through Watertown, MA, calling for climate action, and for town residents to wake up to the climate crisis and approaching election.
directed & edited: Leyla Mandel
camera: Leyla Mandel & Maud Neeley
Article in Raider Times about WHS Sunrise Strike Circle, April 20, 2020
"WHS Strike Circle has big plans for Earth Day"
by Iona Fleming
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