Katharina Hingst, the director behind the short film Bloody Hell, can remember exactly when she started. “I still remember my first period very clearly. It was unexpected and entirely unspectacular, and happened on the morning of the 11th January 1999. I was 11 years old and had just killed my first Tamagotchi, when Mother Nature decided to make a woman of me. The blood didn’t really bother me—I’d already read a lot of teenage magazines by that point and (very proudly) knew exactly what was going on down there. Somewhere between determined and embarrassed, I rummaged through my mum’s things to find a panty liner that I fitted correctly and with ease. I think I only told my best friend and I stocked up on Always Ultra —from the supermarket. Nothing was as dramatic as it could have been. I quickly had the blood situation under control. But back then I had no idea that my hormonal balance was being played with. Unbeknownst to me, I had gone from angelic child to Satan’s daughter overnight. And that was the beginning of a difficult puberty phase, with both raging and tear-filled mood swings that are as much a part of my cycle today as ever. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about PMS then, and was convinced that I was mentally unwell in some way. And that often made things difficult for me.”