Jesseca Ynez Simmons

Jesseca Ynez Simmons is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer and editor originally from the Bay Area. As a director of photography and camera operator she has worked on projects shown at IDFA, the Chicago International Film Festival and DocLisboa, and she was a finalist for the American Society of Cinematographers' Vilmos Zsigmond Student Heritage Award for Emerald Ice; her first feature documentary, I Can Only Be Mary Lane, won the Director's Award for Artistic Merit at the 2018 Santa Cruz Film Festival. She holds a BA in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University, where she was Filmmaker in Residence; she has taught at the University of Dayton and is an Associate Faculty Member at Butte College.