In Bleeding Heart, Jessica Biel is a yoga teacher whose life is nearly destroyed when she tries to save her estranged sister, Zosia Mamet, a prostitute enduring a great deal of violence. But can the inner peace she’s found doing yoga really help her save her sister?
Writer/director of Bleeding Heart Diane Bell is a filmmaker who spent a good portion of her life teaching yoga to sex workers in Scotland and Spain. What she discovered about her students’ lives shocked her.
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“These women were the lowest rung of the sex-worker ladder, most were uneducated, from foster care — none of them had a good family or any sort of background of support. Through no fault of their own, in my opinion, they weren’t equipped to be living healthy, good lives and they’re on this front line where there’s a lot of violence. It horrified me. That was my starting point for writing the movie,” said Bell.
Bleeding Heart is told from May’s (Jessica Biel) point of view. May discovers she has a sister, Shiva (Zosia Mamet), and wants to help her when she learns that Shiva is a prostitute dealing with a lot of violence. But it’s going to take more than the Hindu philosophy of finding inner peace to convince Shiva to change her ways.
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About working with Jessica Biel and having Justin Timberlake visit the set, Bell said, “Jessica’s a phenomenal actress with so much depth. They are both very down-to-earth and seem like a really great couple.”
In this exclusive clip, Shiva is having a phone conversation with her controlling, often violent pimp, Cody (Joe Anderson). May overhears the call and is shocked by what Shiva reveals.
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Bleeding Heart opens in limited release on Dec. 11. It is also available for streaming.
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