mimi leder

Mimi Leder was born in New York into a Jewish family. Her father, Paul Leder , was dedicated to the cinema, so that the desire for the Seventh Art was born practically from her earliest childhood. The fact that her father was a doctor during World War II, perhaps she would make him feel a special affinity for the themes of the ER series , where she would struggle behind the camera. For her part, her mother, Etyl, was a classical pianist, and without a doubt, she transmitted musicality and a sense of rhythm to her. The fact that she was a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, and that she ended up being interned in Auschwitz, would also leave a deep impression on her.

How many women were there at the American Film Institute Conservatory where Mimi Leder studied film? As in the joke, it could be answered that “none or one”, that is, Mimi was the first to graduate from the prestigious institution, a true pioneer in film directing. Curiously, and despite the fact that the films in which her father worked are rather light and little known, Mimi Leder assures that Eight and a Half by Federico Fellini was one of the determining titles of her film dedication.

In any case, as is logical, Mimi’s first jobs were in her father’s films, where she was the script, a very important function to ensure the continuity of the shots and that there are no “raccord” failures that distract the viewer, taking them out of their minds. the plot. Among other titles, she collaborated with this role in Red Light in the White House (1977) and The Strangler (1978), in addition to being an assistant director. Her father also financed the short Short Order Dreams , which she screened for Steven Bochco , who liked her work, so he recruited her as a script in the emblematic police series Sad Song of Hill Street , and gave her the opportunity in 1987 to direct two episodes of another series of the genre,Los Angeles law .

Television became a wonderful school for Mimi, who shot many episodes in various series. They were important for her, face to make the leap to the cinema, China Beach and, above all, Emergencies . In addition to the fact that she signed several telefilms, such as A Little Piece of Heaven (1991) and Trapped in the Past (1992).

Precisely with the “doctor” George Clooney from the ER , who was accompanied by Nicole Kidman , he directed the fast-paced action film with nuclear danger The Peacemaker (1997). It also meant the launch of DreamWorks, the production company Steven Spielberg , Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, which promised to compete head-on with the big studios, although in the end they had to settle, which is no small thing, with collaborating with them. More was expected from the film, but Leder amply demonstrated her solvency as a magnificent craftswoman capable of executing the projects that were put before her. So the following year she directed Deep Impact ., one of meteorites that competed with Armageddon that year , cut by a similar pattern. It was again a DW production, as was Pay It Forward (2000), an endearing story about helping others, with Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt , and then-rising child actor Haley Joel Osment . In between he made a short, Sentimental Journey , which paid homage to the love of his parents.

But she continued to be very focused on television series, and she contributed a lot to some of them. You can tell that she is comfortable with this format that forces you to work quickly in a very controlled environment. Apart from some sporadic intervention in The West Wing of the White House , Luck or Almost Human , he contributed a lot to the emotions of the catastrophic anticipation series The Leftovers , where a strange event has caused a lot of people to disappear all over the world without leave a trace, and in which he came to direct 10 episodes. She has also had no shame in directing half a dozen chapters of Shameless , a dramatic comedy about a family of Irish origin.

Mimi Leder has found great comfort directing A Question of Gender , which is based on the authentic character of United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who made history by contributing to legislative change for laws that discriminated on the basis of gender. sex. It is noticeable that the director connects with many elements of the film: a woman struggling to be a good professional in a field dominated by men, the love of her marriage and family union, Jewish roots, women’s rights, etc. Mimi Leder is married to Gary Werntz, and both share a daughter, Hannah. And she assures that she “wanted to tell her story because I have also suffered adversity and discrimination, and I have had to fight for jobs that inferior men have obtained. I felt that our trajectories had common elements, being both mothers, Jewish women and enjoying a very long loving relationship and equality in our collaboration with our husbands.”