Aviva Slesin

Aviva Slesin is a documentary film-maker.

Slesin was awarded the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary for her film The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table in 1987.[1] She is member of the Directors Guild of America and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Slesin has been a MacDowell Fellow [2] and has had a retrospective of her work shown at the Sundance Film Festival[3] She is a member of the faculty at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Slesin is also a painter.[4]

Career

Documentaries

Slesin's career was launched in 1975 as a freelance film editor with The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir,[5] produced by Shirley MacLaine and nominated that year for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Next, she edited Making Television Dance[6] about choreographer Twyla Tharp, followed in 1977 by The Rutles, a Beatles satire directed by Monty Python's Eric Idle.[7]

In 1980, Slesin made the transition to independent Producer/Director with nine comedy shorts for the original Saturday Night Live.[8] In 1986, she directed and edited Directed by William Wyler,[9] a biography of the late Hollywood director.

In 1987, Slesin won an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary for her film The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table. Then, 1990 marked a shift to dramatic films when Slesin directed and executive produced Stood Up! an ABC Afterschool Special.[10] Then Slesin produced and directed Voices in Celebration,[11] a documentary for the National Gallery's fiftieth anniversary. And in 1993 and 1994, she produced and directed the documentary, Hot on the Trail: Sex, Love and Romance in the Old West[12] for TBS.

During 1995 to 1998, Slesin produced and directed a series of short segments for The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Kids Talk, John Hockenberry's Edgewise, HBO’s Real Sex, and Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.[13]

In 2003, Slesin produced, directed, and narrated Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII,[14] which was nominated for two Emmys [15] and won a Christopher Award.[16]

Films

• Directed by William Wyler (1986)
• The Ten Year Lunch: The Wit and Legend of the Algonquin Round Table (1987)
• Stood Up (1990)
• Voices in Celebration (1980)
• Hot on The Trial: Sex, Love and Romance in the Old West (1993)
• Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII (2003)

Awards

• Academy Award (Oscar)
• Inspirational Film Award, Hamptons International Film Festival
• Lillian Gish Award, Los Angeles Women in Film Festival
• Christopher Award

See also

• Documentary film

References

1. [1], "IMDB"
2. [2] Archived 2009-05-26 at the Wayback Machine, "MacDowell Colony"
3. [3], "New York University, Tisch School of the Arts"
4. [4], "Apartment Therapy"
5. [5], "IMDB - The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir"
6. [6], "Because Films Inspire"
7. [7], "Rutle Mania"
8. [8], "New York University, Tisch School of the Arts - Aviva Slesin"
9. [9], "IMDB - Directed by William Wyler"
10. [10], "IMDB - Stood Up!"
11. [11], "Amazon - Voices of Celebration"
12. [12], "IMDB - Hot on the Trail"
13. [13], "New York University, Tisch School of the Arts - Aviva Slesin"
14. [14], "New York Times", Witchel, Alex, October 2, 2002.
15. [15], "IMDB"
16. [16] Archived 2015-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, "The Christophers - Archives"

External links

• Official website