- Lesli Klainberg is a well-respected nonprofit executive and award-winning producer/director.
Since 2014, she has been the President of Film at Lincoln Center (FLC), one of the top nonprofit film organizations in the United States. FLC operates the Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center, both of which screen films 365 days a year. It also produces the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, and many other series and retrospectives.
Lesli started at Film at Lincoln Center as the Producer of the 49th New York Film Festival in 2010 and was hired in 2011 as the Managing Director of the organization and Producer for the New York Film Festival and the annual Chaplin Award Gala.
From 2014 to 2019, she co-published Film Comment magazine, the foremost journal for film criticism and culture. Eugene Hernandez has been the sole publisher of the magazine since 2021.
Before Film at Lincoln Center, Lesli served as Executive Director of NewFest, New York City's Queer Film Festival.
As a producer, Lesli has had a long and fruitful career. She has worked on award-winning documentaries, including A Place at the Table, Beware of Ginger Baker and The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. Through her company, Orchard Films, she has co-directed and co-produced documentaries such as Fabulous, The Story of Queer Cinema, In the Company of Women, and Miss America.
Lesli started her producing career with the highly praised independent film Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End. This documentary was honored with the Audience Award at the Sundance, Frameline, and Outfest film festivals. It was also shortlisted for the 1997 Academy Awards and nominated for the IDA Award for Best Documentary.
She has a passion for training and nurturing up-and-coming documentary filmmakers. She had the opportunity to serve as a Lab Leader of the prestigious IFP Documentary Film Lab from 2009 through 2011. In 2009, she was a consulting producer for the Sundance Documentary Film Program and produced the IFP Filmmaker Forum and Independent Film Week.
Lesli is a born-and-bred New Yorker and a proud recipient of a public arts education. She graduated from the High School of Music and Art (now LaGuardia HS) and received a BFA from the Film Conservatory of Purchase College, State University of New York.
Lesli has a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from the Film Conservatory of Purchase College, State University of New York. She is a proud recipient of a public arts education and profoundly appreciates the power of the arts to transform lives.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Lesli Klainberg
- Member of the 2003 Sundance Documentary Competition Jury.
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