Jen McGowan

Jen McGowan is an American filmmaker. At the 2014 South by Southwest Film Festival, McGowan won the Gamechanger Award for Kelly & Cal, her first feature film. McGowan is the creator of filmpowered.com, an international skill-sharing, networking and job resource for professional women in film and television. Career Jen McGowan began her career as a filmmaker when she received her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. There she studied film and trained as an actor at the Atlantic Theater Company with David Mamet, William H. Macy, and Sam Shepard. During this period, McGowan worked with New York companies such as RSA/Black Dog, A Band Apart, Killer Films, and Propaganda. She worked on independent feature films, including the Oscar-winning Boys Don't Cry. McGowan received a grant from The Caucus Foundation for her thesis film, Confessions of a Late Bloomer, which began its festival run at the Tribeca Film Festival. McGowan then directed the short film Touch, which won the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Short at the 2010 Florida Film Festival, qualifying that film for Oscar Nomination. McGowan began development on Kelly & Cal, her feature directorial debut, through the First Team project at USC, which fostered projects for their alumni.