jessica j. rowlands
is an award-winning British screenwriter and director who grew up between London and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe where her mother resides.
Before moving from London to Los Angeles to pursue her life as a filmmaker, Jessie graduated top of her class in her first Law Degree, and went on to study International Human Rights Law at the world-class University of Chicago Law School.
In 2019, Jessie won the UCLA Screenwriting Competition and in June 2020, she become the Program’s only two-time award winner, claiming the top prize in the UCLA Writing for Television Competition. She remains the only alumni to win two years in a row, for both feature and television writing.
Since then, Jessie’s work has garnered attention across Hollywood and been recognised by major competitions and film festivals around the world, including the Austin Film Festival and the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, among others.
More recently Jessie won Best Original Screenplay at the London Independent Film Awards, the Gold Prize at the Page International Screenwriting Awards. She also won the Drama Feature Category in the prestigious Final Draft Screenwriting Competition. She has gone on to write feature films for top producers in Hollywood.
Jessie is passionate about directing her writing, and studied Film Directing first on the Sundance Co//ab programs and then at the UK’s prestigious National Film and Television School (NFTS).
RISE is her directorial debut and she hopes to go on to write and direct feature films for a global audience.
Click here to watch Tobius and Tongayi discuss their relationship with Jessie and how they all met.