Jesse Lerner


Jesse Lerner is a filmmaker and writer based in Los Angeles. His documentaries include Frontierland, about the blurred Latino experience in the United States; Ruins, The Atomic Sublime, The Absent Stone and The American Egypt. He directed the short films Magnavoz, T.S.H., and Natives. His films were on display at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Aztlán Today exhibit at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. These films were featured at mid-career surveys at the National Gallery of Art, the Cineteca Nacional, Anthology Film Archives, and the Churubusco Studios. His books include F is for Phony, a survey of faked documentaries, The Shock of Modernity, The Maya of Modernism, Ism Ism Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America, The Catherwood Project, How to Read el Pato Pascual, L.A. Collects L.A., Lean-Drok-Atz, and The Mexperimental Cinema. Two of these publications were associated with film series: Ism Ism Ism and The Mexperimental Cinema. He has also curated other film, photography, and fine arts exhibitions at the National Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, the Schindler House/MAK Center, the Guggenheim Museums, and the Robert Flaherty Seminar. He has lectured extensively on film and other visual arts at institutions including CalArts, Princeton University, the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, the Freie Universitat Berlin, the Museo Amparo, University College London, the Getty Museum, the Hammer Museum, Cornell University, the Museo Nacional de Antropología, the Berlin Documentary Forum, and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.