Vivien Lesnik Weisman was born in Havana, Cuba.  She graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Art History and Political Science and New York Law School with a Doctorate in Jurisprudence. She was then accepted to the New York Bar and the Washington DC Bar Association. Vivien went on to receive an MFA in directing from the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television.

Her first feature film, The Man of Two Havanas, about her Cuban revolutionary father, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to win the most prestigious awards throughout the world, including the Grand Prix Documentary at the Festival Internacional du Cinema Latin de Paris, the IFP Fledgling Fund Award for Best WIP Emerging Latino Filmmaker, The Audience Award at The Vancouver International Latino Film Festival, the First Coral Award at the Havana International Film Festival, the Grand Prix Signis at the Festival Internacional du Cinema Latin de Paris.

Her most recent film a documentary about politically motivated computer hackers The Hacker Wars is currently available on 26 digital platforms including  Sundance Now, Itunes and Amazon Prime. It had a worldwide release and is available in 16 languages. On the eve of its NY release the highly anticipated film was bitorrented more than 600,000 times and has over 2 million views on YouTube.

Vivien is interested in the intersection of spiritual evolution and social justice. Ms. Lesnik Weisman resides in Santa Monica, California and serves on the CODEPINK Board of Directors.