Jess Gell is a freelance Documentary Director, Producer and Multidisciplinary Artist based in London. Her documentaries have focused on topics ranging from uncovering the lives of artists to unearthing personal history including Jean Cooke: Delight In the Thing Seen and The Day Frank Died. She is particularly interested in personal relationships with memory and loss, and mental health.
Jess has directed and edited several films for arts and cultural heritage organisations and mental health charities in Wandsworth, Croydon, Lambeth & Eastbourne. Her commissions include a series of shorts for Inside the Artists Studio (Art on a Postcard / War Child UK), short documentaries for St Wilfrid’s Hospice, short documentary The Power of Words (Status Employment), promotional shorts for the WomanUp! Podcast and documentaries surrounding Indian classical dance and cultural heritage with Apsara Arts.
As a Researcher and Assistant Producer she has worked with Emmy/BAFTA-winning Producers and Directors including a documentary for Foxtrot Films about women war artists for Sky Arts (2024) and Hostile (2022), a BAFTA-recognised documentary by Galeforce Films about the ‘hostile environment’ for migrant communities in the UK.
Jess is an alumna of the Grierson DocLab 2020 training programme. She received First-Class Honours in BA Film and Television at UAL in 2017.
I'd love to hear about your projects - get in touch!
jessgell.com
Projects
- The Power Of Words (2022)The Power of Words is a short documentary about the weight that words hold in our everyday lives, and how we can question, nurture, and shape our relationship with them. Made in partnership with members of the Status Employment group, a charity supporting employment for people experiencing mental health difficulties. www.statusemployment.org Directed, Filmed and Edited by Jess Gell www.jessgell.com Executive Producer Catherine Eaglestone Starring Cecília Campos, Geoffery Pettitt, Nadia Charri
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Work history
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Director and Editor(Freelance)
London, United Kingdom
Self-shooting, interviewing contributors and editing short films for mental health charities, cultural heritage organisations,
and artist groups. Recent film for St Wilfrid’s Hospice screened at the Towner Cinema. Filmmaking portfolio: jessgell.com
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ResearcherFoxtrot Films Ltd.
- London, United Kingdom
Women at War - The Invisible Army (WT)
Sky Originals for Sky Arts (2024) | Feature-length doc about women war artists past and present | Dir. Margy Kinmonth, and several other specialist factual projects in development
• Securing major artist contributors for interviews and closely supporting the Director with contributor and story research
• Assisting Director on location including shooting short scenes and cutaways, schedule management, contributor & crew
care, production stills and responsible for DIT, drive management and transcriptions
• Co-ordinating interview and actuality shoots in UK & Germany including scheduling, location access and crew hire
• Editing scenes and sizzle reels with tight turnaround, used in film & screening to commissioners & MIPDOC Cannes
• Support in the edit including providing feedback to Director & Editor & sourcing archive and sync
• Writing and designing successful treatments for major commissioners and film funds
• Additional research for specialist factual productions in development across history and arts documentaries
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Skills
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Research
- Creative Writing
- Adobe Photoshop
- Artistic
- Documentary Film
- Documentary Production
- Creative Documentary
- Documentary Photography
- Observational Documentary
Education
BA(Hons) Film and TelevisionUniversity of The Arts London (UAL)
- Elephant and Castle, London, UK
First Class Honours in BA Film and Television with a particular interest in documentary.
Units covered were media cultures, film production, editing, scriptwriting, live television production and documentary production.
Awards
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Finalist - CPIFF International Film FestivalCPIFF
Finalist for the CPIFF International Film Festival for my documentary Jean Cooke: Delight in the Thing Seen