When she was honored with a retrospective on the Criterion Channel in 2021, Filmmaker Magazine described Jenni Olson as “a director who understands the restorative power of nostalgia and reflection better than any other.”
Her stunning 16mm urban landscape essay films The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and, like her many shorts (including the acclaimed 2008 short, 575 Castro St.), have screened internationally to awards and acclaim. Among Jenni’s many achievements in the independent cinema world, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the 2021 Berlin Film Festival for her decades of work as a filmmaker and as a champion of LGBTQ film and filmmakers (as a curator, advisor, producer, film critic, film historian, archivist and archival producer, and more). All of Jenni’s work is held by the Harvard Film Archive. Her films have been supported by Field of Vision, Catapult, Chicken & Egg Films, Frameline, SF Arts Commission, SFFILM, MacDowell, and others.
Jenni is also currently co-director of The Bressan Project, devoted to restoring and re-releasing the films of pioneering gay filmmaker Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. She holds a BA in Film Studies from the University of Minnesota and her work as a film historian includes the Lambda Award nominated The Queer Movie Poster Book (Chronicle Books, 2005) and her many vintage movie trailer presentations (Homo Promo, Afro Promo, etc.). Jenni's film criticism has appeared in numerous publications including Filmmaker Magazine, The Advocate, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Logo TV’s NewNowNext.
A former co-director of the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival (Frameline), the oldest and largest queer film festival on the planet, Jenni also served as director of marketing at LGBTQ film distributor Wolfe Video for more than a decade — where she created the global LGBT streaming VOD platform WolfeOnDemand.com. She co-founded the pioneering LGBTQ online platform, PlanetOut.com as well as the legendary Queer Brunch at Sundance. She is also the proud proprietor of Butch.org.
Jenni is now in production on her third feature-length 16mm essay film, Tell Me Everything Will Be Okay and an essayistic memoir of the same name.
Press materials like film production stills and headshots on Jenni and her various projects can be found at this link. For an ongoing set of spreadsheets linking to press coverage of Jenni's films and projects, as well as her own writings and film criticism, etc. — click here.
