It was difficult to write (my pilot) Piney Ridge. During the more challenging scenes, I cried. I cried because it was scary. There were scenes on the page I had never seen before on television. Great stories written in this way can impact the world and this is how I choose to write.
La'Chris Jordan
Writer/Director
Development Grant Winner, Stowe Story Labs, 2020
Winner, Best Director, Top Indie Film Awards, 2020
Winner, Best Short, Top Indie Film Awards, 2020
Nominee-Best Writing, Top Indie Film Awards, 2020
Nominated-Best Writer, Queen Palm International Festival, 2020
Finalist, SAGindie Fellowship, 2020
BIOGRAPHY
Before acting, writing, and directing for the stage, LA’CHRIS JORDAN was a journalist who spent several years abroad in the Middle East where she was a feature writer for FRIDAY, a weekly lifestyle magazine in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Since then, La’Chris has published four books and received over 65+ awards, grants, and honors for her literary, theatre and film work. In 2019, she was a winner in The Script Lab’s Screenplay Contest for her historical pilot PINEY RIDGE. Recently, she was selected as a Stowe Story Labs Development Grant Winner for her military feature ROSES IN THE WATER. La’Chris has also been a WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Fellowship Finalist, a SAGindie Fellowship Finalist, a Second Rounder in the Austin Film Festival and a semifinalist for both the Sundance Episodic Lab and the MACRO Episodic Lab in partnership with the Black List.
In 2020, La’Chris made her directorial debut with JANUARY 14TH which had its world premiere at the Academy Award Qualifying Pan African Film Festival. Inspired by true events, the film won Best Short and Best Director in the Top Indie Film Awards and was nominated for Best Writing by the Queen Palm International Film Festival. The film is also an Official Selection of the San Francisco Black Film Festival and Indie Shorts Fest, among others.
Early on in her playwriting career, La’Chris was named ‘One of the 50 Playwrights to Watch’ by the Dramatists Guild and a semifinalist for the Lila Acheson American Playwriting Program at Juilliard. She has also been the recipient of several playwriting grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the D.C. Arts Commission and the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, to name a few.
A journalism alum of the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, La’Chris is the founder of BlackCinemadb.com, an online database of over 700 films and documentaries from the African American and African diaspora. She is based in Los Angeles, California.
RECENT AWARDS
