Jessica Baclesse
Jessica Baclesse hails from the state of Missouri, land of corn and humidity. After graduating college, she packed up a U-Haul and headed west to Portland, Oregon to live in a land of rainclouds and great coffee. She worked at the advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy on high profile commercials for Levi's and Target and marketing campaigns for the feature films Coraline and ParaNorman. She wrote screenplays, learned to use 8mm and 16mm film, and was an assistant editor on Restless directed by Gus Van Sant. Recently she packed a U-Haul again and drove cross country to Columbia University in New York City to attend the Film MFA program where she is studying writing and directing. She has directed the short films Behind the Shed, The Brink and Speakeasy and has written Roughstock, a feature screenplay in second round consideration at Sundance. Jessica Baclesse was awarded a Screenwriting grant at Columbia in 2012 for Hildegard's Heir.