Jesse Lerner is a filmmaker and writer based in Los Angeles. His documentaries include Frontierland (with Rubén Ortiz Torres), about the blurred Latino experience in the United States; Ruins (about the history of Mexican archeology and the traffic in fakes), The Atomic Sublime (about Abstract Expressionism and the Cold War) and The American Egypt (about the Mexican Revolution in Yucatán). He directed the short films Magnavoz and Natives (with Scott Sterling). His films were on display at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art (2004, 2000, 1996, 1992), the Rotterdam International Film Festival (2011), the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2005, 1999), and the Aztlán Today exhibit at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. His books include F is for Phony (with Alexandra Juhasz), a survey of faked documentaries, The Shock of Modernity, The Maya of Modernism and The Mexperimental Cinema (with Rita Gonzalez). He has also curated film and photography exhibitions at the National Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Robert Flaherty Seminar.
$400,000
