LESLI KLAINBERG
An award-winning producer and director of documentaries, Lesli Klainberg is the Executive Director of NewFest, the NYC LGBT Film Festival. For more than a decade, the documentaries made by her production company, Orchard Films, have been featured at the Sundance, Berlin, Frameline and Provincetown film festivals, as well as on PBS, A&E, AMC and the Independent Film Channel. Among Klainberg’s current projects is the historical documentary, Lesbians in America, a look at the last hundred years of lesbian life in America told through oral histories and home movies, and an untitled documentary about the New York theater company Naked Angels. She is also producing and directing a documentary about the infamous 1973 Billie Jean King/Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match. Klainberg is a founding national board member of GLAAD and has been involved in social action all of her life, having grown up in a political family. “I’ve long understood that we all have the capacity to make a huge impact,” she says, “and for me, I feel it’s an obligation we have as citizens of the world.” Klainberg lives in Brooklyn with her partner of almost 19 years and their two sons. –SLO
