Director of Editing, Senior Editor on Staff
Leslie Simmer is Kartemquin's Director of Editing as well as Senior Editor on staff.
For over nineteen years Leslie has worked at Kartemquin in various capacities. She is currently working on the multi-part series America to Me. Her most recent project before that was Raising Bertie, which she edited and co-wrote, and which premiered at Full Frame in 2016. Leslie edited and co-wrote the Emmy Award-winning film, The Homestretch, which world premiered at Hot Docs 2014 and screened on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2015. She edited and co-wrote the Emmy-nominated feature documentary As Goes Janesville, a co-production between Kartemquin and 371 Productions which screened on PBS Independent Lens in October, 2012. Prior to that, she edited with Steve James on the ESPN film No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson. She edited the Emmy-nominated In the Family (for which she received the Best Editing prize at the "Best of the Midwest Awards”). In 2005 Leslie was co-editor with Steve James on The War Tapes. From 2001-2004 she wore dual hats on the seven-part PBS series The New Americans as both Series Story Editor and Post Production Supervisor.
Prior to putting on her editing hat full-time, Leslie worked in various different production and post-production roles on a number of Kartemquin Films, including Stevie, Refrigerator Mothers, 5 Girls, and Vietnam: Long Time Coming. Leslie got her BA in Communication/Theater Arts (Phi Beta Kappa) from Kalamazoo College in Michigan. She did graduate work in film at Columbia College, Chicago, where she began her long and passionate relationship with the Avid. When not in the edit room, she enjoys travel, music, good food and liquor, snorkeling (and beaches in general), and helping animals.
Films by Leslie Simmer
- Finding Yingying 2020
- Director of Editorial
- Represent 2020
- Director of Editing, Thanks
- America to Me 2018
- Edited by
- Eating Up Easter 2018
- Additional Kartemquin Staff
- Minding the Gap 2018
- Director of Editing
- Raising Bertie 2016
- Editor, Written By
- Unbroken Glass 2016
- Executive Producer, Consulting Editor
- In the Game 2015
- Editors
- Hard Earned 2015
- Kartemquin Films Staff
- The Homestretch 2014
- Writers, Editor
- Life Itself 2014
- Additional Kartemquin Staff
- American Arab 2013
- Editors
- As Goes Janesville 2012
- Editor and Co-Writer
- A Good Man 2011
- Production Support for Kartemquin Films
- The Interrupters 2011
- Additional Kartemquin Films staff
- Sacred Transformations 2010
- Editor
- No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson 2010
- Additional Editing
- In the Family 2008
- Editor
- At the Death House Door 2008
- Kartemquin Staff
- Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita 2007
- Kartemquin Staff
- The New Americans 2003
- Series Story Editor, Post Production Supervisor
- Refrigerator Mothers 2002
- Post Production Coordinator
- Stevie 2002
- Post Production Manager
- Vietnam, Long Time Coming 1998
- Additional Editors