A sharp knife cuts the hand of filmmaker Theodore Ushev. A thin stream of his blood comes to life on a white page. All over the world, idealist revolutionaries shed their blood to denounce injustices. Yet blood is also the very symbol of life. Sketches drawn using the filmmaker’s own blood explore this paradox. Why fight for ideals, noble though they may be, if you must die for them in the end? Are rebellion and insurrection egotistical deeds, or are they lessons in pure altruism? These complex and important questions nourish Ushev’s musings. In Blood Manifesto, this Canadian of Bulgarian origin signs a violent, brutal and troubling political statement in his own blood and narrates it in his own gravelly voice. Poetic and philosophical, the film remains lucid but fundamentally disillusioned and cynical. The viewer comes away from this dance of symbols shaken and subtly changed