Leslie McCleave’s first feature, the supernatural, environmental-awareness tale ‘ROAD’, won the Outstanding Performance Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and was acquired by Showtime. Her documentary feature, ‘How Sweet the Sound – The Blind Boys of Alabama’, will premiere at the Nashville Film Festival in April 2015. Leslie’s shorts have won top awards at Sundance, SXSW, Locarno, and San Francisco International Film Festivals and include ‘Avenue X’, ‘Blixa Bargeld Stole My Cowboy Boots’ (starring Michael Imperioli) and ‘Meeting Marty’ (for Sundance Channel). In 2011 she created, with fellow grantee Elena del Rivero, the 5-screen 9/11 installation, ‘cedarliberty’, presented at the International Center of Photography and New York State Museum. She’s an alumnus of NYU Tisch and the Sundance Institute Writers and Directors Labs. Her work has received support from NEA, NYFA, New York State Arts Council, IFP Radziwill Documentary Fund and Irish Film Board. She’s an Assistant Professor at Queens College, CUNY.