Jenna Payne is a writer, director, and producer with a penchant for dangerous women, buckets of blood, and fast talking. She won an award on her first ever short film, Feline Frenzy, and challenges herself to move forward with each project.

For the past few years, Jenna has battled the US healthcare system in addition to autoimmune disease and channeled her rage into a feature-length dark comedy/medical revenge called Hysteria. The script has been recognized in multiple industry contests, and a short film, directed mostly remotely during Covid-19 lockdowns, that depicts some of the barriers to diagnosis and care toured film festivals like Final Girls Berlin, Access: Horror, and Another Hole in the Head.

Jenna was selected for Female Filmmakers Festival Berlin's Resource Lab directing incubator for 2022, and her prognosis for Ankylosing Spondylitis, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, and more have thankfully improved over the course of this project - as has her sharp sense of humor.

Her latest film Eat the Rich was shot during the total solar eclipse of April 2024 and asks the question: Who is your favorite billionaire to throw on the grill?

Jenna began writing and directing films in New York City. After Hurricane Sandy left lower Manhattan powerless, Jenna pulled together a cast and crew of intrepid filmmakers to direct the only narrative made in blacked out Manhattan - Darktown.

In 2013, Jenna moved to Hollywood. She developed a horror slasher set against the backdrop of the collapse of the American auto industry in Flint, Mich. called The Big Three Are after Me, which is now an anthology pilot for cable, and an Appalachian Godfather series for television called Shiner, which has been selected by the Roadmap Writers JumpStart Competition, Table Read My Screenplay Sundance, and Women In Film’s Mini Upfronts and more.

The first episode of the madcap series Zompire Vixens from Pluto! is now available as a comic book. In addition to her creative endeavors, Jenna worked with the 501c3 non-profit Cinefemme to support and promote women filmmakers in the industry and ran their dinner series with industry movers and shakers like Paul Feig and Zoe Bell called Dinner with Dames. Prior to her illness, she worked in film production on projects ranging from music videos to feature films to Super Bowl commercials.

Now in north Texas, she is building a production company and incubator for emerging filmmakers in the genre space called Disaster Capital and seeking collaborators who love horror, action, sci fi, and crime as much as she does. The inaugural slate features projects helmed by Black, disabled, Jewish, LGBTQIA+, and female filmmakers examining gentrification, climate change, parenthood, racism, and the US healthcare system through a horror lens. Whatever happens next, Jenna is looking forward to whatever is just around the corner.