"Jen is one that I am especially proud to champion as a director and visual artist. She approaches storytelling with great artistry, drawing from the principles of both painting and literature. Her characters and settings are deeply moving and compelling and her story world is intoxicating and vivid.”
— Deborah Riley Draper (on ELECTRIC BLEAU); Writer, Director & Producer
Jen West (she/her) is a writer and director best known for her award-winning narrative shorts (Crush, Bubble, Little Cabbage) and vibrant music videos. A Birmingham, AL native, West is driven by a desire to tell the unsung stories of the South with a strong emphasis on inclusivity and redefining societal norms, especially within fantasy narratives.
In the past, Jen's screenplays have garnered serious attention at both the Atlanta Film Festival & Vail Film Festival, and her screenplay for the upcoming Electric Bleau placed in the top ten at the Park City "Table Read My Screenplay" competition in 2019. Her "Call Me" music video by Alabama band St. Paul & the Broken Bones has over 1M views-and counting! Jen serves on the board for Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington, NC, where she was also selected as an artist in residence in 2014. In 2016, she produced two films that were shown at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase in the American Pavilion. She was chosen as a finalist for the 2020 Lynn Shelton "Of A Certain Age" grant. Most recently, Jen was based in Atlanta, GA where she co-directed the provocative short Spin, which made the festival rounds and sparked challenging conversations in its wake at festivals worldwide. She now lives in Los Angeles.
“Jen West is amazing and magical. She has big ideas that need big support and no one, particularly in the South, is telling the magnificent fantastical stories like she is. Little girls and the little girls in all of us need to play and she builds those playgrounds. I believe Jen will make the next Beasts of the Southern Wild and anyone would be LUCKY to work with her on the front end of her career.”
— Virginia Newcomb, Actress