NYWIFT Blog

By Lily Hutcheson

Welcome to NYWIFT, Jamie Kiernan O’Brien!

Jamie is a filmmaker based in New York City and a current M.F.A. candidate at New York University’s Graduate Film program. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., she began her career as an actor before shifting her focus behind the camera.

Jamie’s films have screened at Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival, Wicked Queer Boston, and TRANSlations Film Festival in Seattle. She loves highly stylized work that plays with and subverts genre, having made films inspired by horror, screwball comedy, erotic thriller, and melodrama.

Her debut short film, an adaptation of The Yellow Wallpaper (in which she also stars), won several awards in the festival circuit and premiered at TRANSlations Film Festival in Seattle in 2022.

Her most recent short, Egg, debuted at Wicked Queer in Boston, and went on to screen at Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival and World Pride DC. She received her B.A. in English Literature from New York University. Jamie is an openly trans woman.

In our interview, Jamie discusses her transition from acting to directing, recent projects, and the filmmakers who have inspired her work!

NYWIFT member Jamie Kiernan O’Brien

Welcome to NYWIFT! Please introduce yourself briefly to our readers.

I’m Jamie, and I’m a filmmaker and MFA Candidate at New York University’s Graduate Film program. I started as an actor mostly in theater before moving into film a few years ago.

Since then, I’ve made three short films, all dealing with trans identity and womanhood in a wide variety of genres, from horror to screwball comedy to melodrama.

What brings you to NYWIFT?

Ever since I began this journey in film, I’ve been very passionate about collaborating with as many incredible women as I can. Most of my closest collaborators are women, both on my films and theirs, and I’m always looking to expand my community even further and discover voices and perspectives I was previously unaware of.

O’Brien on set

After starting your career in acting, what inspired you to take on more roles behind the camera?

I first started professionally acting at 18, and I quickly found myself unfulfilled by the hustle of an actor’s life. While I enjoyed thinking about characters and stories, most jobs come down to your physical appearance and I was tired of having a career that positively reinforced my horrible relationship with my body.

As I completed my undergraduate degree in English, I fell in love with writing in all forms, and discovered that filmmaking was the intersection of my love of acting, writing, and photography. I made my first short without a ton of hesitation, so it felt like a baptism by fire in the best way.

O’Brien works with an actor

You both directed and starred in your short film adaptation of The Yellow Wallpaper. What was it like to hold these two roles simultaneously?

It was challenging, mostly because I was falling out of love with acting while having to give a committed performance for the sake of the film. I didn’t have a strong community of trans women at the time, so I mostly played the role out of convenience, to be honest.

Luckily, the team of women I surrounded myself with were such rockstars and really showed me the standard of collaboration I seek now on all films. I’m very lucky to have had that experience the first time out, and I fell madly in love with directing on that set.

Can you share a bit about your experience making your new short film, Egg?

In my first semester of the Grad Film program at NYU, I had a bit of an identity crisis about my voice as a filmmaker. I felt a lot of pressure to have an extremely clear identity and style right out the gate, and I struggled to figure that out for a bit.

When it was time to make a small-scale short in my first year, I realized I had never written a comedy before and I wanted to give it a go. I thought about how many trans girls believe themselves to be the arbiter of what is and isn’t trans, and I wanted to place that dynamic in the most absurd situation possible.

I was so lucky to find T Mitsock, who is an unreal talent and a dream to work with. She really brought this insane girl to life and made the comedy sing flawlessly.

I didn’t really make the film for the sake of a certain result, I just wanted to challenge myself as a writer, and I think the positive reception to it taught me a lot about trusting myself and making films for myself. I hope I don’t lose that.

On the set of Egg

Are there any filmmakers or movies that have influenced your own work?

I’m very inspired by genre first, so I’m a massive fan of people who play with and interpolate genre conventions to do something fresh.

My biggest inspiration is Todd Haynes, both for his sophisticated depictions of the LGBTQ+ community and for his ability to bring the classic Hollywood “women’s picture” into the modern film landscape.

I’m a bit of a classic Hollywood cinephile, so I’m interested in that kind of performative or melodramatic style and marrying it with today’s indie film world.

I grew up with the films of John Waters, so he’s informed my sense of humor quite a bit. Other favorite films of mine are All About Eve, Showgirls, Persona, The Piano Teacher, Titane, Birth, The Children’s Hour (unironically), and Valley of the Dolls (ironically).

Connect with Jamie at jamiekiernanobrien.com.