Leslie Streit

Leslie Streit
Born	Brooklyn, New York
Occupation	Filmmaker
Years active	28

Leslie Streit is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and actress. She is also owner of Pilates SF, a studio specializing in 1:1 (private) classes.

Filmmaking

Writer, Producer, Director

Currently in production:

• How To Make a Dancer, a documentary about Maria Vegh, ballet teacher extraordinaire, former co-director (with David Howard of the Harkness Ballet School and retired director of the Marin Ballet School.
• The Elly Glass Project, a documentary about Elly & Industrial Designer Henry P. Glass, architect of one of the first solar homes in America.(Co-Producer, Writer, Director)
• Evil Auntie's Quick & Sexy Family Cooking comedy cooking series.(Co-Producer, Director, DP)

Streit's 2005 film God Wears My Underwear, ties the Jewish Holocaust in the 1940s to the genocide in Tibet in the 1950s, and has been screened at several international film festivals, including XXVII Festival Internazionale Cinema e Donne where Agnes Varda pronounced it "Brilliant", DNA Film Festival (Best Short Film), NYIIFVF and MSPIFF where Colin Covert gave it 4 stars. West Coast premiere at Napa-Sonoma Wine Country Film Festival in August 2007. It is presently in distribution on Gigaplex.

She was among 10 international artists selected for the “[[Memory S-[X]-ick]]” exhibition, as part of the Hong Kong Arts Biennial 2002, for her short, Eyewitness.

In 1996, she co-produced VD2001 with Robin Elaine McCain, an award winning Internet site based on her earlier original stage production "Vlad Dracula in the Year 2000", and the first serial to appear on the web.

Streit’s short films have been broadcast on Bay Area PBS, OffLine, iFilm, FilmFilm.com, and have appeared at the Tokyo Video Festival, Il Coreografo Elettronico, the San Antonio Underground Film Festival, the 21e Festival International du Film Independent, Women Make Waves, the Video Screening Project 2001.

Her screenplay "Medina House" won the Telluride IndieFest and has been optioned several times by producers in Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom. Other screenplay awards include a Top 50 Finalist in the Red Ink Works competition and an Honorable Mention at Cinequest.

Leslie Streit has studied with Robert McKee, Hollywood’s most wanted screenwriting teacher and with Dov S-S Simens of the Hollywood Film Institute.

Performance

Writer, director, choreographer, and dancer. Received an M.A. in 1981 from San Jose State University where a combined program of visual art, dance, and theater led to her current work with film and multimedia. Streit worked with Mobius Stageworks, a pioneering experimental theater company from 1982–1985 and founded NewName Performance in 1986.

Numerous commissions and grants to create performances at Bay Area galleries, museums, and outdoor locations include:

• San Jose Fringe Festivals (1992, 1993)
• Experimental Films of Cinequest (1993).
• Collaborated with Estelle Akamine and the San Francisco Arts Commission on the Market Street in Transit Project. (1994)
• Vlad Draculea in the Year 2000 - performances around the Bay Area and in Edinburgh, Scotland. (1995)

Credentials

• Certified Pilates Instructor through the Physical Mind Institute New York City/Santa Fe, NM.
• California K-12 Teaching Credential in Dance Choreography
• California Community College Teaching Credential in Dance
• Master of Arts Degree in Dance & Art - San Jose State University
• Bachelor of Arts - San Francisco State University
• Student of Dimitri Romanoff and Augusta Moore.