Lesli Klainberg

Lesli Klainberg has been the Executive Director of Film at Lincoln Center, one of the leading nonprofit film organizations in the United States, since 2014. She is also an award-winning producer and director of documentary films. Film at Lincoln Center, a 50+ year-old organization dedicated to supporting the art and craft of cinema and enriching film culture, operates the Walter Reade Theater and the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center, both of which normally screen films 365 days a year. Film at Lincoln Center also produces the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, as well as many other series and retrospectives. In 2020, during the Covid pandemic, Film at Lincoln Center was at the forefront of developing a hybrid model-- a digital platform and drive-ins located in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens -- for their annual New York Film Festival. The move to a digital platform allowed the NYFF to extend its reach to all 50 states for the very first time. Prior to her current role as Executive Director, Lesli was Film at Lincoln Center's Managing Director, the Producer of the New York Film Festival and producer of their annual Chaplin Gala. Lesli was the Line Producer of Participant Media's A PLACE AT THE TABLE, which premiered at Sundance in 2012 and Insurgent Media's BEWARE GINGER BAKER, which won the Audience Award for documentary at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival. She was also the consulting producer on the documentary BEST WORST THING THAT EVER COULD HAVE HAPPENED, which debuted at the New York Film Festival in 2017. Through her company, Orchard Films, she co-directed and co-produced FABULOUS! THE STORY OF QUEER CINEMA, which debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in 2006 and was broadcast on IFC, and IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. Other Orchard Films productions include WHO IS ALAN SMITHEE? for AMC, BEAUTY IN A JAR for A&E, and INDIE SEX for IFC. With Lisa Ades, she produced the American Experience documentary MISS AMERICA which premiered at Sundance in 2001. While living in Los Angeles In 1999, Lesli was the series producer of the Twentieth Century Project for Disney TV and Showtime, which featured six documentaries from such directors as Barry Levinson, Robert Zemeckis, Gregory Nava, and Robert Townsend. Earlier in her career, Lesli produced the acclaimed independent film PAUL MONETTE: THE BRINK OF SUMMER'S END, which won the Audience Award for documentary at Sundance, Frameline, and Outfest film festivals. It was released theatrically by First Run Features and broadcast on HBO/Cinemax Reel Life and was on the "shortlist" for the 1997 Academy Awards as well as nominated for the IDA Award for Best Documentary. One of Lesli's passions has been training and nurturing up-and-coming documentary filmmakers. She was a Lab Leader of the prestigious IFP Documentary Film Lab from 2009 through 2011. In 2009, she served as a Consulting Producer for the Sundance Documentary Film Program and has produced the IFP Filmmaker Forum and Independent Film Week. At Film at Lincoln Center, she has helped to nurture the organization's Critics, Artist, and Industry Academies, which create opportunities for women and people of color to engage with their peers and grow into their careers as critics, filmmakers, and members of the industry. From 2008 through 2011, she served as Executive Director of NewFest, New York City's LGBTQ Film Festival. From 2014 through 2019, Lesli was the co-publisher, with Eugene Hernandez, of Film Comment magazine, the nation's leading journal of film criticism and culture. Lesli is a born and bred New Yorker and a proud recipient of a public arts education. She is a graduate of the High School of Music and Art (now LaGuardia HS) and went on to receive a BFA from the Film Conservatory of Purchase College, State University of New York.