Filmmaker Jordan Hopa grew up in Invercargill, New Zealand, at the bottom of the world, before moving to Dunedin to study at the University of Otago, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Film, Media, and Communication. During his time at university, Jordan immersed himself in storytelling, writing screenplays while shooting everything from concert videos to student films. It was there that he discovered his passion for filmmaking, a passion that has continued to shape his life and creative vision today.
After graduating, Jordan moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he signed with his first agency and appeared in a range of short films and commercials. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the industry to a standstill, he returned home to New Zealand and settled in Auckland, where he turned his full attention toward feature screenwriting.
To date, Jordan has completed five feature screenplays. His coming-of-age drama “Kid,” the very first screenplay he ever wrote, recently underwent extensive rewrites nearly a decade after its original draft. The screenplay has since begun gaining significant momentum on the festival circuit, receiving recognition from multiple international screenplay competitions and attracting encouraging interest from US and UK production companies requesting to read the project.
His latest screenplay, “The Highest Order,” has also begun receiving festival recognition, while his recently completed sports-comedy short film “Every 1’s a Winner!”, based on his feature screenplay of the same name, has already earned official festival selections. With several projects gaining traction internationally, Jordan is continuing to build momentum as an emerging filmmaker driven by a passion for emotionally resonant storytelling.
As a writer, director, producer, and actor, Jordan’s dream is to create and star in his own feature films, bringing deeply personal and cinematic stories to life on the big screen. Influenced by character-driven cinema that blends emotional honesty with visual poetry, he strives to craft films that stay with audiences long after the credits roll.
Film has always been his first love and remains his life’s greatest passion.
