JESSICA MARTINEZ--- grew up on the lonely highways and starlit skies of Texas, raised by a young widowed mother. With barely enough money to eat or buy clothes, Jessica learned the value of hard work and persistence.
Jessica hails from a migrant family whose roots lay deep in the plants cultivated allover the United States for generations. At a very early age, Jessica was endowed with a love for performance and storytelling. Terribly shy and awkward as a youth, partially because of the constant traveling, she felt at home on stage and in the endless and comforting pages of her journal. Life’s hardships have made her bring depth and meaning to all her endeavors.
On the strength of a scholarship, Jessica attended University Of Southern California’s School of Theater, with a minor in Cinema. Out of the thirty-eight grandchildren and forty-five great grandchildren her grandmother left behind, Jessica is the first and only female in the family to earn a Bachelors Degree. She credits her mother’s trials, tribulations and strengths for her own success and carries the bite of her great grandmother who lived to be 98 years old.
The start of the new millennium brought Jessica a great collaborator in Richard Montes. The connection was instant and the two co-founded SAFADA Y SANO PRODUCTIONS a start up film Production Company. Pass The Mic! a 60 min documentary, was the duo's first feature length project, eventually distributed by Image Entertainment. Long after the film had its North American release in stores, Jessica would burn midnight oil seizing every opportunity to bring the film to audiences. Pass the Mic! screened at the AFI Music Documentary series event held at the ArcLight Theater in Hollywood along side Madonna’s Truth or Dare. Through her guerilla marketing tactics and a tenacious drive, Jessica was instrumental in selling the house out and having Pass the Mic! accumulate a cult following.
Following the success of Pass The Mic!, Jessica collaborated on a string of short films with Richard, producing and starring in the film festival shorts Star Spangled Banner and Toci: a Mexica Tale- for which she was nominated best Actress by Shockerfest Film Festival. Next, Jessica produced, wrote and starred in the short Liberation! which recently had its film festival premiere.
Stepping into the director’s chair, Ms. Martinez wrote and directed the short “The Passion of Existence” which was nominated for best mini-short at the H2O Hip Hop Festival in New York, and screened at the prestigious Black Soil Film Festival in the Netherlands as well as the Vancouver International Hip-Hop Film Festival. ‘Un Beso’ marked Jessica’s narrative directorial debut which had its world premiere at the Cannes Short Film Corner.
In 2008, she had the honor of meeting two great inspirational teachers in her life, Oscar Nominated Actress Sally Kirkland and Sal Romeo, an Actor’s Studio Directors unit member. Jessica has been studying method acting with both teachers and has grown tremendously both as a person and as an artist of emotions.
JESSICA MARTINEZ--- grew up on the lonely highways and starlit skies of Texas, raised by a young widowed mother. With barely enough money to eat or buy clothes, Jessica learned the value of hard work and persistence.
