FilmMakeRs
Producer
Screenwriter
Director
A University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University graduate, Jessiline, is an LA-based filmmaker and screenwriting instructor. A diehard advocate for women in media, Jessiline’s mission is to do whatever she can to celebrate and co-create amazing content that respects the fact that talent is genderless! She studied screenwriting and directing at the University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University in NYC. She’s grateful to have been a fellow in both the Guy Hanks & Marvin Miller Writing Program (a.k.a. the Cosby Writing Program), and the Film Independent Screenwriters Lab. She’s worked in varying capacities for projects produced by Synthesis Films (Making a Murderer), Character Studies Productions (Rose), BET Networks, and Lee Daniels Entertainment. The National Black Programming Consortium called her “a writer/director to watch,” and after completing A Night to Remember, Jessiline plans to continue her journey toward directing the indie-spirited boxing film, Esquinado, with her mentor, Karyn Kusama, as a creative producer/advisor. Jessiline also works as a script consultant through her company, FemmeMaker Productions, helping a diverse roster of writers move them from first, to final draft.
Editor
Kate is currently an editor on the HBO show Girls, and has worked as an Assistant Editor for acclaimed film editors Dylan Tichenor (Brokeback Mountain, The Town) and Myron Kerstein (Raising Victor Vargas, Garden State). She’s also completing her directorial debut with the feature documentary, Roller Dreams.
Graduating from Sydney Film School in 2005, Kate was the recipient of the Sculpting Pictures Award for film editing. In 2007, Kate won the Cineme Prosperitié Award for a short documentary she produced and edited on the humanitarian business, Toms Shoes. In 2013, she edited the feature film, Farah Goes Bang, which won the Nora Ephron award at the Tribeca Film Festival, and best narrative film at Comcast. And in 2014, she was shortlisted for the Sally Menke Editorial Fellowship with Sundance. Kate met Jessiline in NYC when she came on board to edit Jessiline’s award-winning short film, That’s Good, That’s Enough.
Directors of Photography
Layton, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Radio, Television, and Film, began working as a cameraman in 1977. In 1990, he began work as a commercial director/cameraman and has won many national and regional awards for his work. He’s worked with filmmakers like Richard Linklater, Chris Columbus, and Dennis Hopper and for media companies like NBC, Disney/ABC, Warner Brothers, and Universal. In 2005, he won an Emerging Cinematographer Award from the International Cinematographers Guild for his work on the short film, Spring Cleaning, directed by Jessiline Berry. Recently, Layton produced, directed, and shot the powerful feature length documentary, Art from the Streets, which has been invited to several film festivals. Layton also has a commercial production company in Austin, TX, Inferno Films.
