Jela Okpara

Hailing from Philadelphia, with roots in Washington D.C. , Jela began crafting his own "movies" as flip-book action scenes after surviving a gunshot blast to the chest at the age of twelve. A genre writer and director he creates projects in the sci-fi, action, fantasy, and horror space. Jela's 2012 proof of concept short THE LAST GIRL won him an Audience Choice Award at the Action On Film Festival in Los Angeles. In 2016, he wrote, directed, and produced a horror-comedy proof-of-concept pilot entitled, SPOOK HUNTERS starring Gerald 'Slink' Johnson (Adult Swim's BLACK JESUS & BET'S MAN CAVE) which follows a group of African American Ghost Hunters. With a slew of shorts under his belt he's most recently racking up awards for directing the open world survival piece, SHILOH'S WAR, shot on location in the desert of Death Valley. He's actively developing a feature that he wrote for Jesse James Films based on the best-selling, novel THE LAST ONE by Alexandra Oliva. Currently he's finishing up writing his next project, socio-horror, THE BLACK GUY DIES FIRST.