Mentor Profile

Reflecting Reality: A Profile of Screenwriter and head of development at Maven Screen Media, Jenny Halper

By: Robert Delany

Jenny Halper is a wonderful Stowe Story Labs mentor, but first and foremost she is a writer, producer, and Executive Vice President of Development & Production for Maven Screen Media. She has worked on powerful films including The Kids Are All Right (2010), The Whistleblower (2010), Bernie (2011), Still Alice (2015), Freak Show (2017), American Honey (2016), and The Kindergarten Teacher (2018). Jenny is an Athena List winner, an Our Stories Emerging Writer Award winner, a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Sloane Grantee, and her story collection was a finalist for the 2015 St. Lawrence Book Prize.

Maven Screen Media is a private media and entertainment development, production, and advisory company founded in 2020 by Celine Rattray and Trudie Styler. They are dedicated to producing multi-platform film and television content and increasing representation for women in front of and behind the camera. We partner with Maven for one of our fellowships, which is awarded to a top emerging female screenwriter working on a project for television. The fellowship covers the fees to attend the Stowe Narrative Lab and the fellow’s project will be considered for development by Maven.

Jenny has a lifelong love of cinema. “I’ve been wanting to work in film since I was about four years old. I know that sounds crazy, but I was always obsessed with movies and wanted to work with them in one way or another,” she said. She first began working in the film industry as a film critic between her undergraduate studies at Northwestern University and her graduate studies at Emerson College. This work afforded her some amazing opportunities, such as traveling to visit the Narnia sets in New Zealand: “I really loved it. I love getting to interview actors and directors and writers and getting to hear about the behind the scenes process.” But after working in development for numerous production companies, and working as a successful writer and screenwriter herself, she made her way to Maven Screen Media where she now heads the development of their award-winning slate of films and shows.

Jenny reviews a multitude of projects for Maven, and she keeps these words in mind while evaluating potential projects: “I remember interviewing Alexander Payne, and he said so many times, ‘our cinema must reflect our reality.’ That was something that really stuck with me.” This shows with Maven’s incredibly diverse catalogue that spans so many different types of stories. It’s also her understanding of the disparity in the film industry that pushes her to move forward projects of visionary female filmmakers: “I saw a lot of really talented directors, who would make an incredible first film, not get their second film made too. I saw that a lot as a journalist. So it’s what’s happening with these really talented women directors, why aren’t they getting their second movie made? How can we seek them out? How can we help them get their second movie made, because sometimes it’s harder to get a second movie made than a first?”

Jenny has been an incredible mentor for us in the past at our Labs and Retreats, and we are happy she has had such a positive experience at our programs. “It’s been fantastic. They are really open and great. It’s so clear that it’s about the story for them, and let’s make this script the best it could be,” she stated.

We are ecstatic to work with Jenny and Maven, and we share Jenny’s passion for the Company’s mission. “We just want to keep identifying, developing, and producing stories that are entertaining, female-forward, and have complicated interesting women at the center of them and behind the camera as much as we can,” she said. “We want to create things that spark conversation. I want to keep supporting stories that haven’t been told yet, characters that deserve to be seen, and incredible filmmakers.”

And we want to keep working with Jenny to help her find the projects and people to support.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Robert Delany is a film scholar and writer from the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and an Academic Intern with Stowe Story Labs. He graduated in 2020 with an MA in cinema studies from NYU and was a program associate for the 2020 Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, where he now conducts interviews for their “Filmmaker Spotlight Series.” Robert also writes for Split Tooth Media, an independent film and music publication based in Portland, Oregon. He is currently acting as a researcher on the film Asco: Without Permission, directed by Travis Gutierrez Senger and produced by North of Now. He was also an office assistant at Senger’s production company, Asa Nisi Masa Films, where he focused on the development of numerous projects. Robert graduated in 2018 with a BS in film and TV from Boston University’s School of Communication. Robert Delany was selected for this academic internship to focus on interviews and other writing for The Story Board, the Labs’ bimonthly newsletter. He assists in the establishment of a curated short film platform for Stowe Story Labs alumni.