Leslie Iwerks (/ˈaɪwɜrks/; born 1970) is an American director, producer, and writer. She is also daughter of Disney Legend Don Iwerks and granddaughter of Ub Iwerks, the animator and co-creator of Mickey Mouse and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Biographie

Iwerks graduated from the University of Southern California.

In 1999, Walt Disney Pictures released her first feature documentary, The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story, chronicling the life of her grandfather, Ub Iwerks.

In 2000, Iwerks began working on numerous ethnographic documentaries in Guatemala which culminated in the film Recycled Life (2006), which was nominated for an Academy Award in the Short Documentary category. The film documented the lives of Guatemalans who live and work in the landfill in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

The Pixar Story (2007) was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Nonfiction Special category.

Iwerks released Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible (2010), which chronicles the developments of visual effects house Industrial Light & Magic. The documentary is narrated by Tom Cruise and features interviews with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Robin Williams, J.J. Abrams, Jerry Bruckheimer, Samuel L. Jackson, Seth Green, Jon Favreau, and various ILM visual effects supervisor.

Iwerks' short environmental documentary Pipe Dreams (2011), about the controversy behind the Keystone XL pipeline, was narrated by Daryl Hannah and won the Ashland Independent Film Festival award for Best Documentary Short.