Biography

MAUREEN GOSLING (Director/Editor) has directed, produced, edited, recorded sound and distributed documentaries since 1972. She is best known for her twenty-year collaboration with Les Blank. She got her start as an apprentice to Blank after graduating from the University of Michigan with a BA in Social Anthropology. First a sound recordist and assistant editor on DRY WOOD AND HOT PEPPER, Gosling went on to work with Blank on over twenty films, including BURDEN OF DREAMS (Co-filmmaker, Editor, Sound Recordist) British Academy Award – Best Documentary, 1982; I WENT TO THE DANCE: The Cajun and Zydeco Music of Louisiana (Co-Filmmaker, Editor); GAP-TOOTHED WOMEN (Co-Filmmaker/Editor) and more. Gosling’s BLOSSOMS OF FIRE – 2000, a feature documentary filmed and edited on 16mm, represented her debut as Producer/Director/Editor. The film, a celebratory tribute to the Isthmus Zapotec people of southern Oaxaca, Mexico, was broadcast on HBO Latino. Her other films include the feature docs: THE 9 LIVES OF BARBARA DANE – 2023 (Director/Editor) on jazz/blues/folk singer activist Barbara Dane; THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC! – 2013 (Producer/Director/Editor with Chris Simon) on roots music record producer Chris Strachwitz, which premiered at SXSW; the short, BAMAKO CHIC: THREADS OF POWER, COLOR AND CULTURE – 2023, on Malian women cloth dyers (Producer/Director/Editor with Maxine Downs, PhD).

Gosling has been sought after as an editor, working with such directors as Tom Weidlinger on A DREAM IN HANOI and HEART OF CONGO; Shakti Butler on THE WAY HOME; and Ashley James on BOMBA, DANCING THE DRUM. Her films have been seen in countless film festivals around the world, on national public and cable television, on television in Europe, Australia and Asia, and have been distributed widely to educational institutions.

Gosling has worked with producer Jed Riffe since 2008 on nine social issue documentary films, including WAITING TO INHALE (Editor); CALIFORNIA’S “LOST” TRIBES (Co-Writer, Editor) part of the four-part PBS Series CALIFORNIA AND THE AMERICAN DREAM; PLEISTOCENE PARK (Co- producer/Editor) VICE TV, 2023; THE LONG SHADOW (Co-Creator/Editor), nationwide PBS 2006; SMOKIN’ FISH (Editor) PBS; A NEW COLOR: THE ART OF BEING EDYTHE BOONE (Editor) PBS and more. In 2023 she was honored in the “Les Blank: Americana” major retrospective mounted by the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and in 2024 as part of the “Les Blank: A Life Well Spent” Retrospective at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences.