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Jessica Sanders Writer/Director/Producer
Jessica Sanders is an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, a director, producer and writer who works in both documentary and dramatic films. Sanders recently completed AFTER INNOCENCE, an independent feature documentary film that she directed, produced, and wrote. AFTER INNOCENCE tells the compelling story of innocent men wrongfully convicted and cleared by DNA evidence and their dramatic struggle to reenter society after spending decades in prison. The film premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize, and it also won top awards at the Seattle Film Festival, Boston Independent Film Festival, Nantucket Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, and Full Frame Documentary Festival. The film is being released theatrically by New Yorker Films before being broadcast on Showtime. AFTER INNOCENCE was shortlisted for the 78th Academy Awards.
Sanders produced the film SING!, which was nominated in 2002 for an Oscar for Best Short Documentary. SING! is about a community children’s chorus, which amidst severe cutbacks in the arts, becomes one of the best choirs in the country. The film played theatrically and aired on PBS. Her previous film, LOS ANGELS, a narrative short film that she wrote, produced, and directed played at numerous festivals and received top awards at the Chicago International and New Orleans Film Festivals. LOS ANGELS tells the story of a young girl born with an unusual birthmark on her stomach in the likeness of the Great Wall of China.
Sanders was an Associate Producer on the 2003 Academy Award-winning documentary short film TWIN TOWERS, about the September11 attacks, and was Series Associate Producer, Field Producer and Camera Operator on Dick Wolf’s CRIME & PUNISHMENT, the NBC documentary series featuring the district attorneys of San Diego prosecuting criminal trials.
Sanders is directing and producing SAMBA, a feature documentary film following Rio de Janeiro’s top Samba Schools competing in Carnaval and the drug trafficking gangs that govern their communities. The film is Executive Produced by Lawrence Bender (PULP FICTION, RESERVOIR DOGS, INCONVENIENT TRUTH) She is writing the screenplay MY DAILY ROUTINE and recently completed the dramatic shorts STORMY WEATHER and POOL KING featuring the US record holder for holding his breath under water. Sanders recently filmed Al Gore in Nashville for a work in progress documentary for Producer Lawrence Bender and Paramount Vantage. Sanders filmed Gore teaching his famed Global Warming lecture to committed citizens who will teach about the climate crisis in their communities across the country.
Sanders and her work have been profiled on The Sundance Channel, MTV, MSNBC, CNN, Larry King Live, Dateline, Fox News, Court TV and NPR. She has been profiled in The New York Times, LA Weekly, Giant Robot Magazine, and Film Festival Magazine. She has lectured at various universities and conferences, including the National Innocence Network Conference, Tribeca Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival, and has spoken before the California State Senate.
Sanders majored in Film Studies and English at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and graduated with honors. Sanders is an alumna of the Independent Feature Project’s Project Involve and the organization’s Producer’s Lab, where she was among a select group of filmmakers chosen to develop Independent film projects.
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