JENNIFER MAYTORENA TAYLOR
Jennifer makes colorful, nuanced, character-based films and multimedia about real people with extraordinary lives and stories.
Her most recent documentary credits include the award-winning feature film New Muslim Cool, the Opening Night Feature in the 2009 season of P.O.V. on PBS. New Muslim Cool has screened in top film festivals, museums, and theaters all around the world, garnering multiple awards and honors. It has been featured in the US Documentary Showcase and honored by the US Department of State, and broadcast on top-tier international outlets such as Sundance Channel in Canada, TV Polska in Poland, NDTV in India, NTR in The Netherlands, and NHK in Japan.
Jennifer also recently co-produced and co-directed another multiple award-winning feature documentary, Special Circumstances, for the national PBS series Voces, presented by Latino Public Broadcasting.
Other documentary credits include Paulina, which premiered at Sundance and was broadcast by the Sundance Channel; the Emmy-winning Home Front, Immigration Calculations; Ramadan Primetime; and many short films and tv segments.
Jennifer has held fellowships at the Sundance Institute, Banff Centre for the Arts, the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where also she earned a Masters Degree. She is a recipient of the James D. Phelan Art Award for her body of work, two Emmys, and multiple festival awards. Her work has been supported by leading national funders such as the Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Latino Public Broadcasting, and the Sundance Documentary Fund
Jennifer worked as an associate and co-producer with acclaimed director Lourdes Portillo on Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena and Señorita Extraviada, two award-winning documentaries that had their national broadcast premieres on PBS’s P.O.V. She was also the original Series Producer for KQED’s Emmy-winning magazine show Independent View and has produced several documentaries and short pieces for Northern California Public Broadcasting, the most-watched public television outlet in the country.
Jennifer currently works as a filmmaker-in-residence and research fellow at the USC Annenberg School, teaching graduate-level multimedia production and directing Street Knowledge to College, a collaboratively produced web-based series launching on PBS.org in Spring 2012.
A former dancer who loves Brazilian pop, honkytonk, comic books, tacos, taco trucks, Mad magazine, urban hiking, cooking, modern design, and flat-ground bike riding, Jennifer currently divides her time between San Francisco and Los Angeles.