Blood and Glory
Satinder Kaur
USA. 2020. 12 min
Blood and Glory is a drama about the friendship
between two homeless veterans living on the streets of
LA. Jackie is a dreamer and a hustler who is trying to
get her life back on track. She also takes care of her
battle buddy Rosa, who suffers from debilitating PTSD.
The day that Jackie finally gets a job interview, she
wakes up with a super heavy period. Without money for
pads or tampons, Jackie has to figure out how to get
through the day without letting her blood stain her
clothes or her dignity.
SATINDER KAUR
U.S. Army veteran, Satinder Kaur, is a writer and director who
has lived a story-filled life. By the time she was twelve, she had
lived on three continents and spoke four languages. Her
experiences in the east and the west provide her with a global
perspective and contribute to her artistic voice which is uniquely
American. Kaur loves to write about female friendship and
explore themes of human resilience and transformation against
all odds. She won the Grand Prize in Women in Media
CAMERAderie initiative 2019 for her short film Blood and Glory.
Kaur is a fellow of the Writers Guild Foundation’s Veterans
Writing Project. She collaborated with LACMA on their Veterans
Make Movies workshop series. Her short film The Last Killing
produced by Ensaaf won the best short documentary award at
NewFilmmakers LA and the Amnesty International Best Human
Rights Short award. In partnership with Ensaaf, she spearheaded
the largest human rights video advocacy efforts in Punjab, India,
by interviewing survivors of torture and families impacted by
enforced disappearances. Kaur received her MFA in film
directing from USC School of Cinematic Arts.
DIRECTOR,S NOTE
This story is very close to my heart because I’m a combat
veteran myself. I joined the Army when I was 18 and
deployed to Iraq when I was 21. Transitioning back to
civilian life was difficult, but I was lucky to have a
community and resources. Here in LA, we’ve seen a
steady rise in the number of women who end up homeless
after they leave the military. One day while volunteering on
Skid Row, I saw a veteran walking down the street and she
had a large period stain on her back. I was shocked and
disheartened. That image buried itself in the filaments of
my brain. It was then that I realized that when you’re
homeless or living below the poverty line, lack of access to
feminine hygiene products can really chip away at your
dignity. Yet, there aren’t many stories about these
experiences. So I wrote Blood and Glory to explore this
intersectionality of invisibility through film.
CONTACT
imagineindiafestival.com 