2018 FMS Student Spotlight Showcase Alumn Honoree-Jess Dela Merced
Department: Film and Media Studies
Post Date: September 5, 2019News Details
Jess dela Merced is a Filipina American writer/director from San Francisco. She is currently a director in the Disney ABC directing program. She holds an MFA from the NYU Grad Film Program where she received the Spike Lee Fellowship as well as the Lorraine Hansberry Arts, Performance, and Media Award. Her award winning thesis film “HYPEBEASTS,” written under the mentorship of Spike Lee aired on PBS. Her short film, "Wait 'til the Wolves Make Nice," premiered at SXSW and won the Grand Jury Prize in Detroit's Cinetopia International Film Festival. She is currently in development of her first feature film “CHICKENSHIT” in Detroit, Michigan to be produced by Chris Columbus. The feature script is a winner of NYU's 2016 Purple List, a San Francisco Film Society grant recipient, and a Hamptons Screenwriters Lab participant.
Jess majored in Film and Media Studies and graduated from UC Irvine in 2009, having won that year’s Film and Media Studies’ Outstanding Production Student Award. We are proud to honor her at our first Spotlight Showcase.
Link to her incredible film Hypebeasts-https://vimeo.com/170070172