Biografia
Lesli Klainberg is a distinguished nonprofit leader and award-winning producer/director.
Since 2014, she has served as President of Film at Lincoln Center (FLC), one of the leading nonprofit film organizations in the U.S. FLC manages the Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center, both screening films year-round. The organization also produces the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, and numerous other series and retrospectives.
Lesli began her work at Film at Lincoln Center as Producer of the 49th New York Film Festival in 2010. In 2011, she became Managing Director of the organization and Producer for both the New York Film Festival and the annual Chaplin Award Gala.
From 2014 to 2019, she co-published Film Comment magazine, a leading journal of film criticism and culture. Since 2021, Eugene Hernandez has been the magazine’s sole publisher.
Prior to joining Film at Lincoln Center, Lesli was Executive Director of NewFest, New York City's Queer Film Festival.
As a producer, Lesli has an extensive and successful career. She has worked on acclaimed documentaries such as 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 including Fabulous, The Story of Queer Cinema, In the Company of Women, and Miss America.
Lesli’s producing career began with the highly praised independent film Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End. This documentary won Audience Awards at Sundance, Frameline, and Outfest film festivals, was shortlisted for the 1997 Academy Awards, and nominated for the IDA Award for Best Documentary.
She is passionate about mentoring emerging documentary filmmakers and served as a Lab Leader for the prestigious IFP Documentary Film Lab from 2009 to 2011. In 2009, she also worked as a consulting producer for the Sundance Documentary Film Program and produced the IFP Filmmaker Forum and Independent Film Week.
A native New Yorker, Lesli is a proud product of public arts education. She graduated from the High School of Music and Art (now LaGuardia High School) and earned a BFA from the Film Conservatory at Purchase College, State University of New York.
Lesli holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Film Conservatory at Purchase College, SUNY. She deeply values her public arts education and believes strongly in the transformative power of the arts.
