Jess O’Kane

Source: Peter Searle / Screen International

Jess O’Kane

It was a joy for Jess O’Kane that her feature script for comedy thriller Bad Apples had a speedy route to production after the stasis of the pandemic.

“This one had a real energy about it,” says O’Kane of the Pulse Films title, which stars Saoirse Ronan and shot in the UK in spring 2024. It was among the first acquisitions for Paramount’s revived Republic Pictures label and premiered as a Special Presentation at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

No resting on laurels for O’Kane though: she is working with Searchlight Pictures on Coffin Dodgers, a comedy about a group of boomers – “Marks & Spencer made flesh,” says the writer – who take over their wealthy friend’s country estate for a commune when he dies.

O’Kane cut short a 2017 move to Berlin to study screenwriting at the NFTS, where she met producer Nathan Craig. He brought her on to write Dylan Holmes Williams’ short The Devil’s Harmony, about a bullied girl who fights her enemies through a deadly singing club. It won the Sundance 2020 short film jury prize and was nominated for a short film Bifa; O’Kane is underway on a feature version for Williams to direct for Range Media International (Longlegs), which she hopes will film next year.

Having directed shorts Girl At Party and Hey Sexy, O’Kane is collaborating with Daisy Ridley on The Comedown, a murder mystery series about a group of friends at an Airbnb; and is reuniting with Pulse on a novel adaptation.

“My intention has always been to work across TV and film,” says the writer, who is based in Hastings on England’s south coast. “I like the freedom of [being brought] a good idea and adding some flavour on top of it.”

Contact: Natasha Salter, Salt Partnership 

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