Marie Nesthus is the Director of the Donnell Media Center at the New York Public Library. She holds a doctorate in Cinema Studies from New York University and has dedicated her work to the distribution and exhibition of avant-garde and documentary films, with a special interest in the preservation and exhibition of such works. Under her leadership, the Donnell Media Center has evolved into an important archive and study center for independent film, while continuing to circulate videos and other audiovisual materials to a wide public. She has been active in many organizations in the film/video community (e.g., the Film Advisory Committee of the American Federation of Art, and the Board of Directors of the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, a public access television network, the American Film Festival, and the St. Petersburg [Russia] Non-fiction Film Festival). In June 2002, she was presented with the LEO award for lifetime achievement as a film librarian/programmer at the Flaherty Film Seminar.