Biography

Jess is a producer, writer, director and actress, known for her work on personal stories about hope, human resilience and fighting for truth. She has partnered with director Brad Furman on multiple projects, including the original screenplay Tin Soldier, starring Jamie Foxx, Robert De Niro, Rita Ora and Scott Eastwood; City of Lies starring Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker (about the Rampart Scandal and the unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG); The Infiltrator, starring Bryan Cranston, John Leguizamo and Diane Kruger; as well as the event music videos What Do You Mean from artist Justin Bieber; and Neverland from the Broadway play of the same name by artist Zendaya. In addition to producing, Jess directed second-unit photography on these features.

Jess directed the pilot for MTV's blockbuster series MTV:Investigates, as well as creating 2020: Rise, chronicling the empowering journey of the female gymnasts in the wake of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal as they trained for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Jess started her career as a filmmaker in high school, when she was accepted to the Los Angeles Film Festival for her short film Priceless. She went on to graduate magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with an honors degree in neuroscience and a minor in film, as well as captaining the UPENN Women's gymnastics team to Ivy League and ECAC Conference championship titles. She was a Scholastic All American, Letter Winner and First Team All ECAC. After college in Philadelphia, she was a newspaper journalist and managing editor, before earning two master's degrees from NYU, an MFA in filmmaking and an MBA in finance.

She lives, works, writes and directs in LA.
- IMDb mini biography by: JLF