Biography

My Profile

Jennifer Haskin-O'Reggio

Greater Los Angeles Area

Director

Tags: short documentaries  political/social issue documentaries  personal documentaries  festival awards  ethics  environmental issues  education  Docs on Hurricane Katrina  cinema verite  Center for Social Media  awards  African-American Media  

Contact Information

You must register or login to view Jennifer Haskin-O'Reggio's contact info.

Supplementary Information

Title/Occupation:  Director 

Gender: Female

Race: African-American/Black

Citizenship: US

Languages Spoken: English, French

Brief Message to Members: 

Reel available upon request.

Biography: 

A Southern-Belle at heart, Jennifer was born in New Orleans, LA where at age six, inspired by her flair for the dramatic, her parents enrolled her in a fine arts school where her formal arts education began and continued for six years. Her education in the arts continued with her attendance at Indiana University where she received a Bachelor of Arts in theater and fine Arts. There she studied painting and directed theater productions such as Hedda Gabler, A Raisin in the Sun, The Colored Museum, The Wiz, and For Colored Girls… to name a few.

Upon graduation she combined her love of visual arts and theater by pursuing a directing career in Film and Television. She was accepted into the USC Graduate Film Program where she received a M.F.A. in film production, graduated with distinction and wrote and directed three short films. While still a graduate student at USC, Jennifer won the AMPAS Student Academy Award, the Director's Guild of America Student Award, the Dore Schary Documentary Award, the University Film & Video Assoc. Award, the David L Wolper Student Doc Award, and the Kodak Emerging Filmmaker Award for her short "The Mirror Lied" as well as many other accolades. After an extended festival run, "The Mirror Lied" qualified for an Academy Award and is currently distributed by The New York Filmmakers Library.

Her second short "Blues for Red", funded by a Disney Production Grant, garnered another Director's Guild of America Award, the Kodak Rising Star Award, and an invitation to screen at the Cannes Film Festival. She was then invited to write and direct six "Sesame Street" segments for the Children's Television Workshop, including the popular segments "D is For Dance", "Steppin' to Six", Pigtails, and Mi Familia. After three years with CTW, Jennifer is currently developing two upcoming feature projects, a documentary on life-after-Hurricane Katrina and a coming-of-age narrative film. She has been noted in publications such as Essence Magazine, What They Don't Teach You in Film School (Penguin), and Black Directors in Hollywood (Univ. Texas Press). Her work has been recognized for its unique realistic tone and compelling visual style, in which she has coupled her theater and painting background with her passion to reveal the light and shadow of the human experience. Her films have screened in over 20 film festivals and are used in libraries and universities across the country.