Leslie McCleave produced and directed the feature documentary, How Sweet the Sound – The Blind Boys of Alabama, the first film about this legendary gospel group. How Sweet the Sound premiered at the Nashville Film Festival and has screened across the U.S. including stops at the Margaret Mead Film Festival and as the closing night film at the ReelAbilities NY Disabilities Film Festival. Other work includes the supernatural, environmental-awareness fiction feature ROAD, (Outstanding Performance Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival) and acquired by Showtime, iTunes and Snag Films. Her narrative shorts have won top awards at Sundance, SXSW, Locarno, and San Francisco International Film Festivals. She created the documentary/experimental hybrid sound and video installation, cedarliberty (with Elena del Rivero) which addressed personal and public remediation work at the World Trade Center site and was presented at the International Center of Photography and the New York State Museum. Leslie is an alumnus of the NYU Graduate Film Program, the Sundance Institute Writers and Directors Labs and has received support from the Creative Capital Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Arts Council, IFP Radziwill Documentary Fund and the Irish Film Board.
