Jonathan Isaac Jackson is a New Orleans-based filmmaker, cinematographer, and storyteller whose work lives at the intersection of Black identity, cultural preservation, and the African Diaspora. Wielding the camera as both witness and instrument, he crafts films that don't merely observe culture — they participate in it, extend it, and insist on its survival.

His breakthrough documentary feature Big Chief, Black Hawk announced him as a filmmaker of rare intimacy and purpose. The film — an immersive portrait of the youngest Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief in New Orleans — earned the Paul Robeson Award, a nomination from the Black Reel Awards, and was named Best Film of 2021 by nola.com before finding its audience through PBS/WORLD Channel distribution and a screening at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. His follow-up feature, Who In Da Mornin, traveled from the streets of Nassau, Bahamas to the British Film Institute in London, the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival, and the AFI Caribbean Film Festival — tracing the roots of Junkanoo back to the Ahanta warrior Jan Kwaw and affirming Jackson's commitment to telling stories that move across continents and centuries.

His narrative short The Black Narratives — executive produced by Wendell Pierce and Erika Woods — imagines an AI named Ori programmed with the stories of the Black American consciousness, and made its world premiere at the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York City in 2025. That same year, his most ambitious project yet, which is in development — a multi-year cinematic anthropological hybrid reimagining Zora Neale Hurston's anthropological work and continuing her tradition of preserving the stories of elders in the South.

A published scholar, lecturer, and student of cinema, Jackson brings to every frame a filmmaker's eye and an archivist's sense of duty. His films don't just ask to be seen — they demand to be remembered.