We make nonfiction films, fiction films, and content based on true stories.
The Ruthless Story
Telling stories with integrity, authenticity, and empathy.
"All of my work begins with an image, a moment caught in time, from the first time I processed black & white film many platforms ago. The stills have turned to moving image and sound, because I wanted to hear the stories of the people I was photographing. I tell stories in feature length for the big screen, or in minutes or less for the web and all screens in between. The tools and venues change, but never the inspiration.
Quite simply, I tell the real stories of real people, many of whose opinions have perhaps never been asked before—people who are survivors and who often thrive in the face of adversity.
Whether the subject is a woman from the subculture of 1950’s wrestling, a schoolteacher, a Midwestern farmer in support of gay marriage, a pop music icon, or the CEO of McDonald’s, I try to find the truth that emanates deep from within. It conjures up a moment of sadness left behind long ago or makes us laugh at a familiar image of ourselves, because, it’s something we’ve always wanted to say or do but are still working up the nerve.
That’s Ruthless storytelling."
Original, Impactful Storytelling.
Ruth Leitman
Director, Writer & Producer of Ruthless Films
Leitman is an award-winning filmmaker recognized for highlighting social justice issues in feature documentaries over the past 25 years, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, Paul Robeson Fund, Tribeca Film Institute, Fledgling Fund, and Illinois Humanities Council. In 2016 she was named in British Film Institute, Sight and Sound Magazine’s The Female Gaze: 100 Overlooked Films Directed by Women.
In 2015, she directed for Kartemquin Films’ Al Jazeera America documentary series Hard Earned, which was nominated for an International Documentary Association Award (2015) and won an Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Journalism Award (2016). Premiering at Tribeca Film Festival and Hot Docs, Lipstick & Dynamite (2005) won the Documentary Storytelling Prize at Nantucket Film Festival; was broadcast on SHOWTIME and featured on Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and NPR’s Fresh Air and Morning Edition. Her immigration film Tony & Janina’s American Wedding (2010) premiered at Chicago International Film Festival won a jury prize as well as several social justice awards. Alma (1998) won the Documentary Feature Jury Prize at Hamptons Film Festival, screened at IDFA, SXSW, Director’s Guild of America and Whitney Biennial.
Wildwood,NJ (1994) has enjoyed a second life as a viral film since 2009 and screened at Hot Docs, CPH:DOX and toured theatrically in the UK in 2015. Her early photography work was part of the current major exhibition, Underexposed: 100 years of Women Photographers at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in 2021. Ruth is developing The Pin-Down Girl, a fiction feature film based on her documentary Lipstick & Dynamite about the pioneers of women’s wrestling.
The Company We Keep
