Director Lisa Cunningham Talks ‘Me Period’ Documentary

Being present for the ‘90s and early 2000s “golden era” of hip-hop was a dream that Lisa Cunningham got to live out in real-time. On any given day, the former music video director could boast about her days of rubbing shoulders with Atlanta’s cultural elite: TLC, Kriss Kross, Xscape, and Gucci Mane. Still, her proudest moments behind the lens were born out of a complete switch in gears.

“One day I truly did wake up. I call it my ‘mountaintop moment.’ And because I am from the entertainment industry, I call it ‘the remix,’” Cunningham tells SheKnows. “I said, ‘This is not the story that I want to tell. This is not how I want to leave this earth.’ Don’t get me wrong — I don’t ever disparage my hip-hop roots or any of that. I bring that all with me; I directed Gucci Mane’s first video ‘So Icy.’ I bring that with me.”

While accompanying her aging mother to doctor’s appointments, Cunningham came face-to-face with the enduring health disparities facing the Black community. Shortly after setting the intention to pivot her directorial talents toward wellness, she got a call to partner with the Black Women’s Health Imperative (BWHI), the very first nonprofit organization dedicated to advocating for the health of Black women and girls. 

Campaign after campaign with the BWHI found Cunningham’s former and current worlds colliding: a breast cancer awareness spot with Mary J. Blige in 2020 and a cervical cancer initiative with fellow Atlanta native Ciara in 2021. Now, Cunningham and the BWHI are tackling menstrual cycles and generational trauma with the documentary Me Period documentary. A callback to a 1987 documentary by BWHI’s founder Byllye Y. Avery, the nonprofit’s latest film features a vulnerable discussion between Black mother-daughter duos, including stars like Sheryl Lee Ralph and Tabitha Brown. Guided by “The Period Doctor,” Dr. Charis Chambers, the film tackles the various ways misinformation and disinformation can have harrowing effects on the Black community at large. 

In an emotional hour of biting openness, Me Period elicits deep healing, tackling how family dynamics, education, language, and access are all pivotal components of body politics. “We could not have scripted what happened. It was divine. It was life-changing,” Cunningham recalls. 

So far, the director’s purposeful pivot is like one of those remixes that ends up going harder than the original song. “I’m here, firmly planted in the health space now,” she says. “Y’all can’t get rid of me.” 

SheKnows: As the adage goes, “life imitates art.” So tell me a little bit about how your personal journey led you to this documentary. 

Lisa Cunningham: If you had told me 15 years ago that I would be having interviews about directing a health-related documentary with Black families, I would have called you nuts. I was entrenched in the entertainment industry. I am from Atlanta and I grew up doing videos with people like TLC and Kriss Kross and Xscape. And so those early days of music videos in Atlanta was my first footing into the whole film world. […] But what I have done now is, I see this lens as you get older, you get a little wiser. You want to be more invested in the outcomes. 

I also had a mother that was aging. And we started going to doctor’s appointments and I started looking around and seeing folks that didn’t have healthcare as good as my mama’s — who were going through things in that system that just is so broken. And so I just started getting into all of that and setting the intention in place that I was going to remix my life and figure out a way to use my gifts for good. That was all I had to do: set that intention. And the Universe just started working things out for me. I ended up working with a lot of nonprofits and in corporate, with things leaning into these spaces that I wanted to get into. 

That’s crazy. This is on purpose. I want to know a little bit more about the title, Me Period. 

First of all, let’s go back to Byllye Avery, the founder of Black Women’s Health Imperative. I was on their YouTube page one day, and I saw that she had done a documentary back in the eighties called On Becoming a Woman. And I mean, this grainy footage. I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve never seen anything like this.’ And she got together Black mothers and daughters talking about all the things — puberty, menstruation, everything. So I went on Beyoncé’s internet and Googled to see if I could find anything else like it. There wasn’t anything.

I said, ‘We’re going to have to do 2.0.’ Little did I know Byllye, our founder, had already made a pact with our president, Linda Goler Blount, that one day they would do that very same thing: the 2.0 version of On Becoming a Woman. So I’m on a Zoom call one day with our president, and nobody could come up with a name. We wanted it to be called ‘Becoming,’ but of course we couldn’t use that because of Michelle Obama. So she goes, what about ‘Me Period?’ And I said, ‘Oh my God, Linda, you just came up with the name.’

I’ve never seen On Becoming A Woman, and when I watched Me Period, I appreciated the format: Dr. Chambers with the mother-daughter duos, and that conversation. As a filmmaker, why was that format so successful? Especially in terms of the subject matter?

Well, I think in these days and times, we have to think of things from misinformation — and then nowadays, disinformation. And so it was important especially as an organization, that we are always your trusted source. So we’re going to bring The Period Doctor in to talk about periods from a trusted source. 

There were so many myths that were busted. The first audience for this film is parents and caregivers. And what that dynamic did is, you create a safe space. And I know that’s an overused phrase, but you create a safe space. And then the mothers and the daughters felt like they could share back and forth and also off of each other, if you notice.

Speaking of caring for this panel as they share such vulnerable moments, I wasn’t expecting a therapist to also come into the mix. Can you talk to me a little bit about including Tammy Von Nordheim and having that therapy element as well? 

What’s interesting is that we knew we wanted a therapy element to it, because a lot of parents and caregivers are struggling on any given day with their own lives. And then just trying to process all of these different developments that are going on with their young ones. So because a lot of them are parenting through the lens of trauma, we knew that we needed a therapist on set. What we did not know is that these women would share so much, and that the therapist would end up giving them respite and counseling. And we followed up with them afterwards to check on their mental health as well. I think this whole conversation of physical health always has to be combined with mental health. They’re not separate; they’re inextricably linked. And so because of that, there was no way we couldn’t have a therapist in that conversation.

You also have Sheryl Lee Ralph and Tabitha Brown. They’re celebrities, but they also seemed to represent a turn of the tide in terms of Gen X saying ‘Oh wait, I might want to do something different with my child.’ Was that on purpose? And would you say that that’s an accurate marker of a shift, Gen X?

First of all, I love the universality of the human experience. So Tabitha Brown is Tabitha Brown today. Sheryl Lee Ralph is Sheryl Lee Ralph today. But when they were 12, they were just girls. And there’s this whole rite of passage and how we redefine what this time period in a young person’s life is; I think that’s Gen X meeting their own legacy to say, ‘I’m not going to parent from this lens of trauma.’ Tabitha Brown talked about the trauma due to  her religious upbringing. Her friends were scared to get their cycles because if you got your cycle early, ‘you were being fast.’ So I think that yes, there is this whole notion of [Gen X saying], ‘But wait, I want to get it right.’

The documentary ends up being about so much more than periods. It ends up being about generational trauma. It ends up being about how that generational trauma informs the way Black women and girls see their bodies. I wanted to hear from you about really illustrating the through line of how miseducation can lead to violence.

Well, I think that our families need to understand the pathway from miseducation into violence from a real historical perspective, quite frankly. Because this started many, many years ago, and there are systemic issues that are at play today. But when we can empower our young people to take back that hypersexualization, to take our power back, and to offer up a new narrative for our young people, it’s paramount. Because if you don’t operate from that [empowered] standpoint, and you’re just out here in the world, you are ripe for predators. And you could see the light bulbs going off in the young people. And so that is my hope, that understanding misinformation and the history of our people in order for us to get to the other side. 

The film kind of feels like a gift, and it feels like a gift to Black mothers in particular. If this film is indeed a gift and a Black mother opens it up, what do you hope she sees inside? 

Oh, wow. I hope that parents and caregivers see themselves. I was so meticulous in this casting process. I said, ‘No, we are going to have people from all backgrounds, okay? All backgrounds.’ And that was so important because you ended up seeing the layers. 

One important part that came out is about menstrual equity. Every day at the Black Women’s Health Iimperative, we’re always working towards health equity in different buckets. And we ended up finding out how big of a deal menstrual equity is. We did surveys on it, finding that people are missing two to three days of school a month because they can’t afford period products. We are finding out that there are certain states that are trying to limit period education and health classes before sixth grade when we know through all of the reports that are coming out now, that our young people are getting their cycles as early as eight, and the norm of the average age is shifting much lower. So I think that every step of the way, I wanted a woman to see herself. I wanted that Jack and Jill woman to see herself. I wanted the old Fourth Ward lady to see herself. I wanted the woman that’s struggling with her child that identifies as they/them and doesn’t know what the heck to do about that [to see herself].

There’s just no way that this project, that this film wasn’t healing or cathartic for you. So I want to hear a little bit more about how this film healed parts of you. 

I remember directing and producing music videos, and it would be top-of-the-chart stuff, and the only thing that really came of that was that the culture was happy for a couple of weeks. The artists made a little bit more money. So that was really the outcome. That’s it. But every day now, I wake up and understand that my body of work can save lives, and can heal. So this project in particular, it was my love story to Black families. And quite frankly, I also wanted to give that gift that hadn’t been given to me. My mother was the most amazing woman. One of the things she did not do is break down all of those little nuances though. It doesn’t make her any less of the great mother that she was, but oh my goodness, I needed what I gave to the world through this film, what the Black Women’s Health Imperative gave to the world through this film. I needed it. And so that’s the healing part for me. 

And I will share this: on the last day of filming our group scenes with the mothers and daughters, I get a phone call halfway through, and it was that my mother passed away. And my mother was everything for me. The way those women and girls rallied around me with the biggest hug, the way my crew that are all my friends and everyone rallied around? I knew that this was a legacy project. And I tell everybody now: that day, that’s my new Mother’s Day. 

And that’s your mom’s name at the end of the film that you’ve dedicated it to?

That’s right.

Oh, that’s beautiful. 

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