We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Moore a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jessica , thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
My grandmother and father are immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago. I had the amazing opportunity throughout my life of not only seeing the beautiful islands, but specifically the houses they come from and grew up in. My grandmother came from shack and migrated to the U.S. with nothing. She built a business and worked as a nurse’s aide. For years, she did overnight shifts and still had the time on the weekends to comb my hair and cook. She worked for years and years to the bone even when she was going blind. My father also worked until he was no longer able to. They both instilled in me through example and discussions that hard work does pay off one way or another. You may not end up being the richest, but you can be okay.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a Filmmaker and Educator. I’ve made several short films, and one of them received the National Board of Review Student Grant 2020. I’ve also been an educator for about a decade. Someone once said there are two types of Directors; the people who reflect the real world and the people who create a new world. I like to think I’m in both camps in the way I experiment with film language, genres, and content. The films I’ve made had different styles, but they all reflect parts of social problems; such as heartache, gentrification, or in the new film I’m shooting divisions within a community.
Right now I work as Director of Education and I’m directing a short film in February, which is about a queer vigilante group that creates a golem-like creature to help protect the LGBTQIA+ community. There’s also another one of my shorts that’s going to be shown in March in NYC.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I find critical thinking skills, curiosity, and empathy are the most important, being able to question everything and anything. Anytime you get a chance to reflect or be by yourself and read or research something you’re passionate about develop this skill. Whenever you feel curious, follow that curiosity, even if it’s just for fun. But, all the knowledge means nothing if you’re not able to connect with other people. I believe deep down that people do want to feel a genuine connection with others, and will always give you a chance to show your personality. No one truly wants to be alone, and showing empathy, that you understand parts of their life helps create lasting relationships others.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
There are two books I would like to mention here. Zami: A new spelling of my name by Audre Lorde and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
Zami taught me that my experience as a queer Black Caribbean-descended person didn’t set me apart from people, but connected me to others. Lorde’s book helped me feel less alone and gave me words to my feelings. Just as her friend Pat Parker, the poet, did as well.
Brave New World was a book I read in High School that stuck with me to the present. I loved how he intricately created this world only to tear it down. To me the book was about the dangers of a utopia, are you willing to sacrifice free will and your feelings to accomplish a world with no pain?
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/koheu_fret/
