Leonardo da Vinci Screening and Panel Discussion

Buffalo Toronto Public Media and partners The Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo & Erie County Public Libraries, Buffalo Museum of Science, and The Foundry invite you to a screening and panel discussion of Leonardo da Vinci, a new, two-part, four-hour documentary directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon.

Join us on September 30 from 6-7:30 pm at our WNED PBS studios where we will screen clips of the film, followed by a panel discussion. Join special guest and Leonardo da Vinci filmmaker, David McMahon, and our panel of experts representing STEAM disciplines where we will discuss da Vinci’s influence as an artist, inventor, and scientist.

The film, which explores the life and work of the 15th century polymath Leonardo da Vinci, is Burns’s first non-American subject. It also marks a significant change in the team’s filmmaking style, which includes using split screens with images, video and sound from different periods to further contextualize Leonardo’s art and scientific explorations. LEONARDO da VINCI looks at how the artist influenced and inspired future generations, and it finds in his soaring imagination and profound intellect the foundation for a conversation we are still having today: what is our relationship with nature and what does it mean to be human.

Set against the rich and dynamic backdrop of Renaissance Italy, at a time of skepticism and freethinking, regional war and religious upheaval, LEONARDO da VINCI brings the artist’s towering achievements to life through his prolific personal notebooks, primary and secondary accounts of his life, and on-camera interviews with modern scholars, artists, engineers, inventors, and admirers.

Moderator
Keiah Shauku, Director of Community Engagement, Buffalo AKG Art Gallery

Panelists

David McMahon, Filmmaker

David McMahon has been making award-winning documentary films for more than a decade. With Ken Burns and Sarah Burns, he wrote, directed and produced The Central Park Five, a two-hour film about the five teenagers who were wrongly convicted in the Central Park Jogger case of 1989, which won a Peabody Award and Best Non-Fiction Film of 2012 from The New York Film Critics Circle. In 2016, he again teamed with Ken Burns and Sarah Burns to direct and produce Jackie Robinson, a two-part, four-hour biography of the baseball and civil rights icon, for which he and Sarah Burns were nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Non-Fiction program and won a WGA Award for documentary script. In 2020, he and Sarah Burns directed and produced East Lake Meadows: A Public Housing Story, a two-hour film about a housing project in Atlanta, which premiered on PBS that spring. In 2021, Together with Ken Burns and Sarah Burns, he produced and directed a four-part series on Muhammad Ali, which was named the best television show of the year by Awards Daily writer David Phillips. He and Sarah Burns were nominated for a WGA award for the script. Raised in Clarence, New York, and a graduate of the University of Michigan, McMahon lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, Sarah Burns, and their two children.

MORE PANELIST INFORMATION COMING SOON!

This event is FREE, however, you must register to attend.

About the Series: Set against the rich and dynamic backdrop of Renaissance Italy, at a time of skepticism and freethinking, regional war and religious upheaval, LEONARDO da VINCI brings the artist’s towering achievements to life through his prolific personal notebooks, primary and secondary accounts of his life, and on-camera interviews with modern scholars, artists, engineers, inventors, and admirers. The film weaves together an international group of experts, as well as others influenced by Leonardo who continue to find a connection between his artistic and scientific explorations and life today. As the filmmaker and Leonardo admirer Guillermo del Toro says at the beginning of the film, “the modernity of Leonardo is that he understands that knowledge and imagination are intimately related.” The entire series premieres on WNED PBS on November 18 & 19, 2024.

More about the film:

Production Credits: LEONARDO da VINCI in a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C. Directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon. Written by David McMahon and Sarah Burns. Produced by Sarah Burns, David McMahon, Ken Burns and Tim McAleer. Edited by K.A. Miille and Woody Richman. Cinematography by Buddy Squires. Narrated by Keith David. The voice of Leonardo is read by the Italian actor Adriano Giannini. The musician and composer Caroline Shaw wrote and recorded original music for the film performed by Attacca Quartet, Sō Percussion and Roomful of Teeth. The executive in charge for WETA is John F. Wilson. Executive producer is Ken Burns.

Funding Credits: Corporate funding for LEONARDO da VINCI was provided by Bank of America. Major funding was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by The Better Angels Society and by its individual members The Paul and Sandra Montrone Family; Stephen A. Schwarzman; Diane and Hal Brierley; Carol and Ned Spieker; Michael and Sandy Collins; Mario J. Gabelli; The Lynch Foundation; McCloskey Family Charitable Trust; Cappy and Janie McGarr; and John and Leslie McQuown. Funding was also provided by Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha Darling; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; and the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation.

Local Leonardo da Vinci activities are offered by Buffalo Toronto Public Media and project partners Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo & Erie County Public Libraries, Buffalo Museum of Science, The Burchfield Penney Art Center, and The Foundry.

Host or Publisher Buffalo Toronto Public Media