Leslie Simmer

Director of Editing, Senior Editor on Staff

Leslie Simmer is Kartemquin's Director of Editing as well as Senior Editor on staff.

Leslie has worked at Kartemquin in various capacities since 1997. She is currently editing an episode of a three-part Netflix series that will air in Q1 2022. Leslie was part of the edit team of the The First Step that premiered at Tribeca in 2021. She was delighted to have worked on the U.S. episode of the Netflix documentary series My Love, (2021), nominated for a Critics Choice Award. Leslie co-directed and was an editor on KTQ's For the Left Hand, which will debut in 2021. Prior to that she was one of the lead editors on the multi-part Starz 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 and screened on POV in 2017. Leslie edited and co-wrote the Emmy Award-winning film, The Homestretch, which premiered at Hot Docs 2014 and screened on PBS’s Independent Lens in 2015. She edited and co-wrote the Emmy-nominated 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 StevieRefrigerator Mothers5 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 teaching, travel, music, good food and liquor, snorkeling (and beaches in general), and helping animals.

Films by Leslie Simmer

For The Left Hand 2021
Co-Directors, Editors
The First Step 2021
Editors
Represent 2020
Director of Editing, Thanks
Finding Yingying 2020
Director of Editorial
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
Stevie 2002
Post Production Manager
Refrigerator Mothers 2002
Post Production Coordinator
Vietnam, Long Time Coming 1998
Additional Editors