CATHERINE JELSKI

Catherine Jelski recently directed an episode of Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz’ pioneering online series, “QUARTERLIFE.” Posted in six chapters on www.quarterlife.com, the show will air in one-hour prime-time episodes on NBC beginning in February, 2008.

Catherine directed the mini-series “WATCH OVER ME” for 20th Century Fox Television, which aired in 2006 on MyNetwork TV. Before that, she directed an episode of “STRONG MEDICINE,” the one-hour drama from the Lifetime Channel, produced by Sony Pictures Television.

Catherine Jelski wrote and directed the independent feature, “THE YOUNG UNKNOWNS.” The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, was released theatrically in 2003 and is now available on DVD. Entertainment Weekly senior film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum praised “THE YOUNG UNKNOWNS” as “raw and potent.” The New York Times’ David Kehr wrote that Jelski revealed “a real talent for handling actors.” The New Yorker dubbed it “richly done,” while Salon.com hailed Jelski’s directing as “nothing short of exquisite.”

In the theater, Jelski directed a young Julliard dropout named Kevin Spacey in a critically acclaimed 1984 New York City stage production of Friedrich Schiller’s “THE ROBBERS.” In the following years, she directed plays by Jean Cocteau and Tom Stoppard, as well as the U.S. premiere of the German play, “LOVELY RITA,” by Thomas Brasch.

Jelski is currently developing the screenplays “DEEP EAST TEXAS,” a law-enforcement drama set in the exotic reaches of East Texas, and “PALMDALE, CA,” a story about girls and gangs in the Antelope Valley. She received a 2004 Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony for her writing. Her script “LITTLE Z” was a finalist in the 2007 Sundance Screenwriting Lab. In 2003, Catherine received the ABC-DGA Television Directing Fellowship, one of only three directors chosen for this one-year grant and mentorship program.

Jelski is a member of the DGA and the WGAw.

She can be reached at witzende [at] mac.com.