Jess Gell is a documentary director and producer from South London. Her short films include Jean Cooke: Delight In the Thing Seen, about the extraordinary life of RA Painter Jean Cooke, and The Day Frank Died, which explores the impact of her paramedic grandfather's sudden death in the 1960s. Jess received first class honours in her BA in Film and Television at UAL, and was selected for the Grierson DocLab scheme in 2020, mentored by award-winning producers Maureen Murray and Gillian Moseley. She is a selected filmmaker in the Creative United Re:Create 2024 programme.
Her directing commissions include the series Inside the Artist's Studio for AOAP x War Child UK, Dying at home: Debbie and Mark's Story, for St Wilfrid's Hospice and National Lottery-funded Power of Words for Status. She is currently developing a further series of interviews in artist spaces.
As assistant producer, Jess has worked closely with BAFTA and Emmy-winning producers and directors on documentaries including War Paint - Women at War (Margy Kinmonth, Foxtrot Films, Sky Arts /Conic 2025) about women artists in conflict, and multi award-winning, BAFTA-recognised Hostile (Sonita Gale, Galeforce Films, BFI Player / Picturehouse 2022), about the UK’s hostile environment towards migrant communities, executive produced by Nitin Sawhney. She has recently finished a project with Section 52 Films.
