About

Jessica spent her early and formative years in Minneapolis. The daughter of a published English professor/poet and fine art photographer, she was introduced to film in childhood when she saw many of the great American films of the 1970s. Jessica carried her love of movies to Sarah Lawrence College, where she earned a B.A. in 1991. After enrolling in NYU’s “Sight and Sound” workshop, Jessica threw herself into the down-and-dirty independent film scene and worked variously as a production coordinator, production auditor, grant writer and script reader as well as at numerous odd jobs that paid the bills.

In the mid-1990s, Jessica met Iranian film director, Amir Naderi, who asked her to collaborate on a script to be set in the East Village neighborhood where they both lived; A, B, C… MANHATTAN premiered in the prestigious Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1997. The film subsequently screened in the American Spectrum section of the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. From there, Jessica went on to co-write and co-produce another feature, GOING UNDER, a dark drama starring acclaimed theater and film actor Roger Rees. The film went to numerous festivals, including the Sao Paulo International and Cinequest, and was awarded Best of the Fest at the Northampton Film Festival. GOING UNDER had a brief theatrical release before being distributed by Blue Underground on DVD. During these years, Jessica also wrote and directed two short films, one of which, BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, features a leading-role performance by Edward Norton. A child-rearing hiatus ensued, but Jessica was thrilled to collaborate with Werthman again on the script for THE DRUMMER, which addresses the terrible toll of war on soldiers past and present and was completed in 2020. Danny Glover plays the lead role, and after a pandemic outdoor premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival, the film secured distribution with 1091 Pictures, and is currently available on numerous streaming platforms.

Jessica currently lives in Brooklyn with her family and continues to write screen and teleplays as well as ply her trade as a grant writer and overall organizational guru. In addition to garnering numerous screenplay awards (see section), Jessica was delighted to find herself back in the director’s chair with her most recent collaboration, a short film THE CLIMBING ROSE OF THE GARDEN DISTRICT, produced by and co-written with David Pons, which was completed in 2023. Set in New Orleans in the 1970s, the darkly humored film follows the plight of a woman social climber whose fate is as prescribed as her standing. The film is currently being submitted to festivals worldwide.