SISTERS

A lifelong writer and photographer, Jennifer graduated from Sidwell Friends and earned her Bachelor of Arts with honors in English at Oberlin College before beginning her career in the documentary/educational film industry of her hometown, Washington, DC.

Wanting to hone her skills as a filmmaker, Jennifer spent three years earning her MFA in Film Production at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts where she won the Edward Small Directing Scholarship for her existentialist film ROOM 119 (2001) and wrote and directed her 35mm USC graduate thesis SEARCHING FOR ANGELS (2006). After graduating USC in the spring of 2004, Jennifer’s thesis film screened at the Director’s Guild in Los Angeles as part of the April 2006 First Look Festival. Working in Houston, TX over the last few years, Jennifer completed a set of twelve educational videos for a local Montessori School and EVERYTHING BEGINS AT B.I.R.T.H. (2007) about non-profit organization BIRTH founded by midwives.

Jennifer’s romantic comedy screenplay HONEYMOON ADVENTURERS was selected as a “Screwball Comedy” Finalist in the Broad Humor Screenplay Contest in July 2006 and her feature-length script adaptation of SEARCHING FOR ANGELS was a quarter-finalist in the 2008 American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest. In November 2008, Jennifer won her first “NaNoWriMo” writing challenge with an 85,000-word novel written over a 30 day period which was the basis of the YA paranormal romance novel series AFFINITY that she is currently shopping around to agents. In November 2013, Jennifer won NaNoWriMo again with a 51,000-word novel set in a post-oil future where humans are forced to live in concentrated cities or face the wild of Nature that’s quickly regained control.

In addition to writing and directing, Jennifer is also a producer, most recently working on the short arthouse film NEXT EXIT (2015), which was selected for the 2015 Cannes Short Film Corner, and the independent feature film THE PREACHER’S DAUGHTER (2012), showing on Lifetime. Jennifer produced several USC graduate thesis films including the festival favorites UNSYNCABLES AT ANY AGE (2003), FIST OF IRON CHEF (2004), and PEBBLES (2005), as well as the A.C.E.-sponsored HD documentary THE CUTTING EDGE: THE MAGIC OF MOVIE EDITING (2004). Credits and info can be found on IMDB.

Currently teaching filmmaking (fiction and documentary) at Houston Community College’s Audio and Filmmaking Department, Jennifer also served as the Program Coordinator for SouthWest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP) organizing film workshops, screenings, and networking events to help support and build the filmmaking community in Houston.