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]
