The School of Theatre, Film & Television (TFTV) proudly congratulates alum Jeanna French on being named a 2023-2024 Karen Schmeer Editing Fellow.
Named for the gifted editor Karen Schmeer (Erroll Morris’s Academy Award-winning The Fog of War), the fellowship cultivates the careers of an inclusive group of rising documentary editors through mentorship to help them grow as artists and build their community. Past fellowship recipients include TFTV alum Lindsay Utz (American Factory, Miss Americana).
“I am so beyond thrilled to be in this year’s cohort of Karen Schmeer fellows,” says French. “To receive this fellowship, and to learn from and be a part of a group of such talented film editors and Karen Schmeer alumni is the greatest honor.”
Jeanna French is a film editor whose work has aired on HBO, PBS, and around the world. After graduating from the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television in 2012, French began her career as an editor, and later post-production supervisor, for all nine seasons of the PBS series In the Americas with David Yetman. Her work as an editor includes the Oscar-shortlisted HBO documentary Brillo Box (3¢ off), now available on Max, LACMA Productions’ A Few Things About Robert Irwin, about the pioneering Light and Space artist, and Herb Stratford’s feature length documentary Gustav Stickley: American Craftsman, which is distributed by First Run Features. She recently completed editing Firelighters: Fire is Medicine, about Yurok and Karuk burning rights activists, set to air on PBS in 2024.
Outside the edit room, Jeanna’s photography work has shown at several exhibitions at the Blank Wall Gallery in Athens, Greece and the Chania International Photography Festival and will be featured in the forthcoming Night Vision exhibition at Sky Harbor International Airport, on view from November 25 2023 – June 23, 2024.