Les Blank

Les Blank is an award-winning independent filmmaker best known for a series of poetic films that led Time Magazine film critic Jay Cocks to write “I can’t believe that anyone interested in movies or America…could watch Blank’s work without feeling they’d been granted a casual, soft-spoken revelation.” Born in 1935 in Tampa, Florida, Blank attended Tulane University in New Orleans. After two years of film school at the University of Southern California, he made his first film about Texas blues singer Lightnin’ Hopkins in 1967. It won the Golden Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival. His early independent films began a series of intimate glimpses into the lives and music of people who live at the periphery of American society. Major retrospectives of his work have been mounted at FLIMEX, the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, MOMA, The National Film Theatre in London, UK, Cineteca Nacional, Mexico City and the Cinematheque Francais, Paris. His film “Burden of Dreams,” about Werner Herzog and the making of “Fitzcarraldo” in the heart of the Brazilian jungle, won Best Feature Documentary from the British Film Academy, The Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival and the Grand Award, Houston Film Festival. Les Blank has been the Louis B. Mayer Filmmaker at Dartmouth College and a Fellow at the Sundance Institute. His work has received support from The National Endowment for The Arts, The American Film Institute, The National Endowment for Humanities, The Ford Foundation and The Guggenheim Foundation.