Independent Films

Independent Films No Straight Lines (2021) Director/Producer A mash-up of art, humor, and history, No Straight Lines tells the remarkable stories of five scrappy and pioneering comic book artists who broke the doors open and...

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Photo credit: Bryan Jimenez

Vivian Kleiman is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker whose work is known for its challenging subjects, edgy visual approaches, and a dollop of humor.

Vivian founded Compadre Media Group in 2016, which released No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics at the Tribeca Film Festival (2021) and then on the award-winning national primetime series PBS Independent Lens (2023).

Honored with a Eureka Artist Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation, she served  as story editor on the Showtime series Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men. She also is known for her collaborations with landmark filmmaker Marlon Riggs, including Tongues Untied, which gave voice to the agony of Black gay men in the face of the AIDS crisis.

Also an educator, Vivian taught at Stanford University’s Graduate Program in Documentary Film and Video Production.