Photo via Jolene Mendes on IMDB
Young isn’t always synonymous with inexperienced. This is especially true for 23 year-old Trinidadian producer, Jolene Mendes who already has two films under her belt. Jolene has worked as an associate producer for U.S. films, Porgies & Bass (2016) and The Catalyst (2016) that both enjoyed heavy rotation in U.S. festival circuit. Porgie & Bass has won four awards thus far including Best Short at the Coney Island Film Festival while The Catalyst is making its mark in the horror film world won Best Picture, Best Short Screenplay, Outstanding Acting, Best Special Effects at Haunted Oaks Film Festival, New York City International Film Festival and Zed Fest Film Festival.
Jolene is not only involved in cinematic film but also music videos, commercials and shorts. She has produced 2 commercials for the world-renowned film school, New York Film Academy and 2 music videos for Grammy Award Winner violinist, Miri Ben-Ari set for release later this year. In the short film “Craig” available on YouTube here, she hired and worked alongside well-known visual effects artist/ cinematographer/editor, Pete Polyakov who worked on blockbuster films such as Jupiter’s Ascending, Interstellar, Mad Max.
You can look forward to even bigger things from Jolene as she plans to being working on a feature film in 2018 between New York and T&T called Super Zeros (working title). It’s about a group of retired superheroes who come to a fictionalised Trinidad and Tobago for a vacation but are then forced to return to their old jobs in order to save the country from spiralling crime. Check out Jolene’s IMDB page here and keep following FilmTT to see updates on work from Jolene.