Arts Division
Professor of Social Documentation
Faculty
Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas
Latin American & Latino Studies
Porter College
Merrill College
Kresge College Academic Building
1205
On research leave in Fall 2024-Winter 2025
Film and Digital Media
Over two decades of experience as an award-winning filmmaker of feature and short documentary films, Professor of Social Documentation Jennifer Maytorena Taylor has built a robust body of cinematic and journalistic non-fiction work. Her productions are regularly seen around the world through broadcast, film festivals, and theatrical screenings at venues like the Sundance, Hot Docs, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Locarno Film Festivals, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, New York Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Channel, Al Jazeera, NHK-Japan-and frequently on PBS.
Professor Taylor holds a Masters in Specialized Journalism from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where she also worked as a research fellow and instructor in multimedia journalism. She is the founding Faculty Director of the Social Documentation Lab, a new post-production and collaborative learning facility for graduate students. She frequently serves as a mentor for under-represented and emerging non-fiction filmmakers through organizations such as PBS, Latino Public Broadcasting, and Sundance Institute.
Professor Taylor's most recently completed feature documentary, For the Love of Rutland, explores three years in the life of a small blue-collar town grappling with deep change in an era of refugee crises, the opioid epidemic, and ideological and cultural polarization. For the Love of Rutland was named one of the “10 Most Exciting Films” at Hot Docs 2020 by Indiewire and one of “2020’s 10 Best Films” by the documentary magazine POV. After a successful film festival run, For the Love of Rutland had its national broadcast premiere in as part of Season 10 of the PBS World series America ReFramed. The film is currently streaming on the PBS Documentary Channels at Amazon Prime and Apple+TV, as well as on PBS.org.Professor Taylor's recent short film Redneck Muslim, co-directed with Mustafa Davis, was broadcast in 2020 on the PBS series POV and is currently streaming on The Atlantic magazine’s website. Other recent work includes Message To Zaire/The Talk for national PBS; Daisy and Max, a long-form documentary commissioned by Al Jazeera America for global distribution and broadcast; and the short Visiting Day for The Atlantic.
Previous credits include the award-winning feature documentaries New Muslim Cool, broadcast nationally as the opening night feature on the POV series on PBS; Special Circumstances for the Voces series on national PBS; and Paulina, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by the Sundance Channel after a theatrical release.
Other work includes Latinos are Essential and Street Knowledge 2 College, two award-winning digital series for PBS Digital Studios and Latino Public Broadcasting; the Emmy Award-winning documentary Home Front; and many other broadcast projects, short films, and co-productions.
Professor Taylor's work has been supported by the JustFilms/Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Latino Public Broadcasting, Sundance Documentary Fund, Fork Films, Catapult Documentary Fund, San Francisco Film Documentary Fund, Hartley Film Foundation and other leading national funders.
Professor Taylor is a Sundance Documentary Program Fellow, and has held fellowships at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, MacDowell Colony, Points North/Tribeca Film Institute, Banff Centre for the Arts, and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She is a recipient of the James D. Phelan Art Award for her body of work, two Emmys, and multiple festival awards. Born in Los Angeles of Mexican, Sicilian, and Irish/English heritage, she grew up in both L.A. and Vermont and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
Over two decades of experience as an award-winning filmmaker of feature and short documentary films, Professor of Social Documentation Jennifer Maytorena Taylor has built a robust body of cinematic and journalistic non-fiction work. Her productions are regularly seen around the world through broadcast, film festivals, and theatrical screenings at venues like the Sundance, Hot Docs, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Locarno Film Festivals, International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, New York Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Channel, Al Jazeera, NHK-Japan-and frequently on PBS.
Long and short-form documentary film production; verité filmmaking; journalism; politics, culture and ideology; Latinx culture and community; rural and small town stories; youth and popular culture; religion
Non-fiction film directing and producing; project ideation, research and development; field production skills; post-production skills; grantwriting and fundraising; audience engagement strategies.
Professor Taylor's work has been supported by the JustFilms/Ford Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Latino Public Broadcasting, Sundance Documentary Fund, Fork Films, Catapult Documentary Fund, San Francisco Film Documentary Fund, Hartley Film Foundation and other leading national funders.
