Jennifer Holness is a Jamaican-born Canadian film and television director, producer and screenwriter. She operates Hungry Eyes Media Inc., along with her business partner and husband

Sudz Sutherland David "Sudz" Sutherland is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. His credits include the films '' Doomstown'', ''Love, Sex and Eating the Bones'', ''Guns'', ''Speakers for the Dead'' and '' Home Again'', as well as episodes of ''Drop the Beat ...

.
"At Home with Jennifer Holness & Sudz Sutherland"
''Sway'', 2011-04-08. Her production and writing credits include the film '' Subjects of Desire'', ''

Love, Sex and Eating the Bones ''Love, Sex and Eating the Bones'' is a 2003 Canadian romantic comedy film directed and written by Sudz Sutherland, featuring a mostly African American and Black Canadian leading cast. It premiered and played twice at the 2003 Toronto Internation ...

'' and the television series ''

Guns A gun is a device that propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). Solid projectiles may be ...

'', ''

She's the Mayor ''She's the Mayor'' is a Canadian television sitcom which aired on Vision TV in 2011."She' ...

'' and ''

Shoot the Messenger "Shooting the messenger" (also "killing the messenger", "attacking the messenger", "blaming the bearer of bad tidings", or "blaming the doom monger") is a metaphoric phrase used to describe the act of blaming the bearer of bad news, despite the ...

''. Holness also directed the documentary film '' Speakers for the Dead'', and produced

Catherine Annau Catherine Annau is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and writer. Annau's debut feature '' Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the '70s Generation'' won numerous awards including a Genie Award, and appeared at New York's Lincoln Center, the National Gallery ...

's documentary film '' Brick by Brick''.

Biography

Jennifer Holness was born in 1969 in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She moved to

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Canada, at a young age with her mother. She attended

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

, where she studied political science. This is also where she met her husband David "Sudz" Sutherland. The two were married after finishing their degrees at York University and have three daughters.

Career

Holness has mentioned that growing up in a housing project helped shape her view of the city and how she crafts her work. The aim of her work has been a steady understanding of the stories that most people do not want to direct; touching subjects about gun violence, homophobia and deportation of immigrants in the city of Toronto. Holness' professional career started with a documentary in which she co-directed, ''Speakers for the Dead'' (2000) with her husband, Sutherland. Following the success from ''Love, Sex And Eating the Bones'', Holness produced and co-wrote a miniseries for CBC titled ''Guns'' (2009). She then went on to produce a documentary, ''Badge of Pride'' (2010), which looked at the struggles that gay police officers faced in the force. Holness went on to produce and co-write another feature film titled ''Home Again'' (2012), in which follows Jamaican deportees from Canada. Holness mentions that she obtained the inspiration for this film from a classmate in high school who was deported back to Jamaica- and killed in a shooting. It was in an attempt to challenge the bill C-43 which stated that immigrants with criminal records could be deported back to native countries. Her largest work to date with husband David Sutherland with a production value of over 4 million. She produced and co-wrote the TV crime drama, ''Shoot the Messenger'' (2016), a drama that follows a journalist who gets tied up with various third-parties (such as gangs and politicians) while she uncovers her first murder case. The idea was loosely based on the controversies of former Toronto mayor

Rob Ford Robert Bruce Ford (May 28, 1969 – March 22, 2016) was a Canadian politician and businessman who served as the 64th mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Before and after his term as mayor, Ford was a city councillor representing Ward 2 Etobi ...

. In 2021, her documentary film '' Subjects of Desire'' (2021) premiered at

SXSW South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

competing in the Documentary Feature Competition.

Awards and nominations

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Holness, Jennifer Living people Canadian documentary film producers Canadian television producers Canadian women television producers 20th-century Canadian screenwriters Canadian television writers Canadian documentary film directors Canadian women screenwriters Black Canadian screenwriters Black Canadian women writers Canadian women film producers Canadian Film Centre alumni Canadian women documentary filmmakers Canadian women television writers Year of birth missing (living people) Black Canadian filmmakers 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian screenwriters 21st-century Canadian women writers Film producers from Ontario Canadian film production company founders Canadian Screen Award winning writers Canadian Screen Award winning directors