SIOUX CITY (KTIV) – On Thursday, Oct. 1, people from across the country will pay tribute to a longtime \u201ctreasure\u201d in our community, Sioux City photographer and filmmaker George Lindblade.<\/p>\n
At 7 p.m., a documentary of his illustrious career kicks off the weekend\u2019s Sioux City International Film Festival at the Orpheum Theatre.<\/p>\n
The documentary is titled \u201cCutting Edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
What started out to be a personal video to tell the life story of Sioux City\u2019s George Lindblade turned into a two-year labor of love by people he has worked with and influenced.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we decided to blow this up big and interviewed people in Los Angeles, Hollywood, New York City who worked with George 50-some years ago when they were young adults,\u201d Jim Kiertzner said. <\/p>\n
Sioux City native Jim Kiertzner started in local television as a teen, later spending years in Detroit. He\u2019s done much of the legwork to tell Lindblade\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother liked to take pictures. She had a Brownie camera. And people always flocked to her to look at her pictures. And I thought well, that\u2019s my opportunity. I can be the most popular guy on the block if I take pictures,\u201d said Lindblade.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a rock star with the firefighters because he has been documenting them since he was seven years old,\u201d according to Kiertzner.<\/p>\n
Lindblade would also inspire his young co-workers like a teenage Ron Clements, who\u2019d later become an animator and filmmaker for such movies as \u201cThe Little Mermaid\u201d and \u201cAladdin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe encouraged me. And I desperately needed that at that time,\u201d said Clements.<\/p>\n
Former Sioux City co-worker John Behring has directed 150 episodes of prime-time television programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a grounded, creative force of nature,\u201d according to Behring.<\/p>\n
And Lindblade used that creativity to give an early, memorable boost to a fledgling Gateway 2000 computer company.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he was a photographer. But he created an environment of creativity. He always thought bigger than Sioux City,\u201d says Gateway computer founder Ted Waitt.<\/p>\n
George\u2019s talents weren\u2019t just limited to Siouxland. He shot segments for ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said the people in New York couldn\u2019t figure out how these cowboys back in the Midwest were shooting such great segments,\u201d added Kiertzner.<\/p>\n
And a chance meeting while living in California led to a stint as Frank Sinatra\u2019s personal photographer, giving George rare access to Sinatra\u2019s life and family.<\/p>\n
And he\u2019s spent years documenting Sioux City history from the renovation of the historic Orpheum Theatre to the neighborhood once known as the South Bottoms and the rebirth of a decaying, dangerous Lower Fourth Street into a popular historic district.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if you don\u2019t know George or what he\u2019s done over all of these decades… it will be entertaining and it will be informative,\u201d adds Kiertzner.<\/p>\n
The October 1 showing of \u201cCutting Edge\u201d is free and open to the public at the Sioux City Orpheum Theatre.<\/p>\n
Want to get the latest news and weather from Siouxland\u2019s News Source? Follow these links to download our KTIV News app<\/a> and our First Alert Weather app<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 KTIV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SIOUX CITY (KTIV) – On Thursday, Oct. 1, people from across the country will pay tribute to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":["post-862241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}