IVOH Managing Team: Eli F. Bleich

As President and CEO of mediagroup inc., a motion picture production company based in New York City, Eli F. Bleich has more than 40 years of experience working in the development and production of documentary film.

He began his career with CBS News in 1964, with projects such as The Warren Commission Report, with Walter Cronkite, and In the Pay of the CIA with Mike Wallace. In 1968 he joined Charles Guggenheim Productions in Washington D.C., where he began his long career as a political media consultant. In 1980 he served as creative director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential campaign.

His other directorial credits include the classic rock-and-roll documentary Fillmore which was released by 20th Century Fox, and more recently Fast Lane Summer, which was independently produced by mediagroup. Currently he is a graduate student in Media Studies at The New School, in New York, where he is working on his thesis involving "media, myths, and memories" among the Inuit populations of the Arctic.

Bleich holds among his many awards the U.S. Cine Golden Eagle, a Gold Medal from the Atlanta Film Festival, and a Golden Mike Award from the National Association of Broadcasters. He also received the New York Independent Film Festival's "Best Documentary Director" Award for his work on Fast Lane Summer. As a student at NYU's film school, he produced and edited his classmate Martin Scorcese's anti-Vietnam war short, The Big Shave, which received the L'Age d'Or Prize in Brussels. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America, and a former member of the International Association of Political Consultants.