WRITER / DIRECTOR
Jess Plus None is writer/director Mandy Fabian’s feature directorial debut. Committed to doing comedy from a female perspective since she began her career, she wanted to make a feminist rom-com where the lead ends up single and happy, so she combined her love of camping and the movie The Big Chill, and Jess Plus None was born.
Visit www.JessPlusNone.com.
The opening scene to writer-director Mandy Fabian’s debut, Jess Plus None, will undoubtedly capture your attention. It provides valuable insight into the titular Jess (Abby Miller), a heartbroken 30-something desperate to love and be loved, yet she’s confused between sex and love. Let’s just say it’s a solo sex scene. Quickly we realize Jess is getting ready to leave town to be the maid of honor at Melanie’s (Marielle Scott) wedding to Greg (Scott Speiser). It is a destination “glamping” wedding in the woods…
The ReFrame Stamp is awarded to narrative and animated features that hire women or individuals of other underrepresented gender identities/expressions (including those who are non-binary or gender non-conforming) in four out of eight key roles including writer, director, producer, lead, co-leads, and department heads. Additional points are awarded to productions that hire women of color in key positions, and to those with overall gender parity in their crews.
Abby Miller (Home Before Dark) will star in Jess Plus None, the directorial debut feature from writer and director Mandy Fabian. The film centers on Jess (Miller) who goes to her best friend’s wedding in the middle of nowhere, where she will be confronted by her ex, her happily coupled friends from college, and the insecure monster she becomes when she is off the grid.
EXCLUSIVE: NewFilmmakers Los Angeles and Warner Bros. Discovery brand OneFifty have announced Merced Elizondo, Meghan Ross, Mandy Fabian and Thales Corrêa as the recipients of its newest set of NewNarratives grants.
While the program created in 2021 to support and develop emerging global storytellers traditionally recognizes just one artist at a time, the inclusion of Ross, Fabian and Corrêa reflects NFMLA and OneFifty’s inability to decide on one winner from a particularly high quality set of submissions. Elizondo’s grant will aid in the development of his latest narrative feature The Mourning Of, with Ross’s to support a proof-of-concept release for the half-hour episodic series Here to Make Friends. Fabian will use the grant support post-production on the narrative feature Jess Plus None, with Corrêa to pursue the completion of post-production on the episodic short-form series, Doggy Bank.