NEVADA WOMEN’S FILM FEST HONORS…
JESSICA CHANDLER
AS OUR 2025
NEVADA WOMAN
FILMMAKER OF THE YEAR
For her innovative body of work confronting taboo topics, including mental health and the hypocrisy of the American death industry.
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2025 NEVADA WOMAN
FILMMAKER OF THE YEAR EVENT
Honoring filmmaker
Jessica Chandler
Friday, June 20th, 2025
3:30PM – 4:30PM
Jessica Chandler in conversation with Brett Levner
Q&A and Presentation of Award
Jessica Chandler
Jessica Chandler began her career while a film student at UNLV, where she took an internship on the movie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Toward the completion of the film, she was hired as an assistant to Todd Phillips on the series Taxi Cab Confessions, then later as a field producer.
In 1999 she relocated to L.A., spending the next three years working on various TV and film projects — before embarking on her own projects in 2002.
In 2003 she made her directorial debut with A Fine State This Is, a documentary about multiple personality and artist, Deborah ‘Fargo’ Whitman. It opened at the Los Angeles Film Festival to sold out audiences and critical acclaim, then later went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Outfest Film Festival.
She spent the next five years developing documentaries, ranging from religious cults to more personal stories, such as Neil Strauss and the effect his best selling book The Game had on society, as well as a music documentary that followed Tom Morello (Activist, and guitarist of Rage Against the Machine) as he rallied his musician friends to play intimate shows that raised money for the homeless in L.A.
Soon after, she shifted her attention solely to writing thrillers — and in the spring of 2014, wrote and directed her first horror feature Lake Mead aka Drowned (co-written with Eli Roth and Nicolas Lopez.)
In 2021 she developed a horror series with A&E based on a feature script she had written, Don’t Help the Girl.
Most recently, she completed a feature length documentary (director/producer) on the death care industry’s toxic toll on the environment, and the green alternatives that are being blocked by multibillion dollar corporations. The Death Boom was produced/by QC films, Eli Roth, Leonardo DiCaprio/Appian Way.
Host - Brett Caroline Levner
Associate Chair & Professor, UNLV Department of Film
After graduating with honors from NYU, Brett got her start at MTV where she worked her way up from intern to producer on popular shows like True Life, Diary, My Super Sweet Sixteen and Made.
Brett attended Columbia University’s graduate film program where she became the first woman to win the Coca Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Award in 2004, with her film Being Reel. The film went on to be screened on 21,000 movie screens across the country and was honored at the 2005 Association of Independent Commercial Producers show for “Excellence in Filmmaking.” It is currently included in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art.
After graduating with honors from Columbia with an MFA in Directing, Brett directed the music video for O.A.R.’s hit song Lay Down, which took home the MTVu Woodie Award for Most Streamed Video. In addition, she received the Comedy Central Award for Best Comedy Screenplay for her feature-length script, Snow Whites of Suburbia and has produced and camera operated on several hit shows including The First 48, Bridezillas, The Shift, Flip This House and Sister Wives.
Brett directed The Track, a feature film about underage sex trafficking in Las Vegas, starring Sam Trammell (True Blood) and Missy Yager (Manchester By the Sea, Mad Men). The film was awarded “Best Local Feature” and “Best First Time Feature Film Director” at the Las Vegas Film Festival. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
Brett most recently directed the award-winning music video China Blue for R&B singer Cam Calloway and the feature film Riot in Bloom. In addition, Brett serves on the board of Women in Film Nevada (producers of the Nevada Women’s Film Festival) and is the founder/faculty advisor of the UNLV student organization, Cinefemmes, which supports women in filmmaking. Under her tutelage, her students have gone on to win numerous awards including Pacific Southwest Student Emmy Awards, an Addy Award, a Best Nevada Filmmaker Award and a Spirit of Activism Award.