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Jess Berry earns Best Actor at Hoosier Films
With one Indiana film festival award already on her resume, Greencastle native Jess Berry and her short film “Daughters” added another one at the Hoosier Films Festival in Bloomington.
Jess was named Best Actor for her role in a production that she wrote, directed, filmed and edited. It was filmed entirely on the Jack and Jane Berry family farm outside Greencastle.
“That was her dream,” mother Janae notes. “She had Jack driving the tractor, her sister (Jenna) holding the microphone and she made her mom act. ... I guess I did OK.”
OK enough that Jess was initially confused after her mother accepted the Best Actor award on her behalf at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre in downtown Bloomington.
“She was the boots on the ground,” Jess told the Banner Graphic regarding mom Janae’s attendance at the two-day Bloomington event. “I couldn’t make it, I’ve got lots going on in L.A. right now.”
When the award was announced, Janae fired off a text to her daughter, proclaiming, “We won! Congratulations!” and including a photo of her accepting the award from Thomas DeCarlo, a fellow Greencastle product who runs Hoosier Films and the festival.
Janae picks up the story there.
“I sent Jess the photo and she thought that I had won Best Actor and she was so excited. When I told her, ‘No,’ she had won, she was even more excited.”
Forty movies and short films made in Indiana were entered in the competition. The judges selected the winners after viewing all the films.
“That was a nice surprise,” Janae said of receiving the award for her daughter’s role in “Daughters.” “But I thought, ‘If he hands me the microphone, I may have to say something’ ...”
Jess, a 2004 Greencastle High School graduate, was still “kind of shocked” at the award.
“It’s so flattering, so humbling to get this kind of recognition from a community I love so much,” she said. “It’s so wonderful to always feel the support from Indiana all the way out in L.A.”
Jess boils the plot of “Daughters” down to: “Home for a birthday visit with her family, a career-driven daughter must come to terms with the heart-breaking differences she has with her beloved mother.”
The short film had previously won the Audience Choice Award at the Indy Shorts, a film festival presented by the Heartland International Film Festival, in July 2022.
The poster for “Daughters” now shows eight separate laurels as Jess went across the country, playing to eight different festival audiences, while winning the two festival awards to acceptance into other festivals (including LA. Shorts and the No Coast Film Festival), the last of which is still coming up in Port Townsend, Wash.
“To get on their radar” is a feather in Jess’ cap. She having her expenses paid to be part of the Women in Film Festival in Washington State, where she will take part in seminars and workshops, talking about women and their presence in film-making.
Jess isn’t resting on her laurels, she has been busy working on “Fairgrounds,” an idea for a feature film for which she shot some footage at the Putnam County Fair in 2021. She has “pivoted into making a short film” in order to raise necessary revenue to make “Fairgrounds”as a feature.
She’s also been developing a TV pilot, called “Little Jess,” that’s set in the Midwest, “definitely with some Indiana ties.” It follows ”a thirtysomething lost Millennial who gets shot back in time only to be confronted with her 14-year-old self,” Jess explained. “And her only way to get home is to relive her high school life together to get her back to the future. Yea, we’ve got some time travel involved and two very different characters.”
She still has a lot to resolve, working through the plot. “Does she do soccer? Do musicals? We haven’t worked that out yet.”
Meanwhile, after one-episode roles on “Chicago PD” and “9-1-1” and a national TV commercial for Hefty Bags with John Cena, acting is still in her blood, and she maintains agent representation in both L.A. and Chicago.
“I’ve been going on some really great auditions,” Jess said, noting that she’s walked away from those experiences feeling good about her efforts while knowing that striking paydirt in the acting world “is the long game. But I love the process.”
Turns out the Hoosier Films Festival was like old home week for Greencastle participants. Thomas DeCarlo, a 2001 Greencastle High School graduate, and wife Meredith founded Hoosier Films in 2018 with the purpose of building structure, promotion and support for Indiana made movies.
And in addition to the Berrys, Michaela Semak, daughter of Michael and Rosie Semak of Greencastle, was featured as the wife of the lead character in ”Cold Cross,” a western shot in Indiana. DeCarlo explained that she is in theater at Anderson University and responded to an open call for the movie that was winner of the Best Feature at the weekend festival.
Meanwhile, another Greencastle product, Ethan Gill, was also in attendance. He is now in some kind of film-making capacity at Indiana University.
“It’s a small world for all this Greencastle stuff,” Janae Berry offered. “It’s exciting for that to happen. We’ve got some creative people coming out of here.”
Meanwhile, Jess wants friends and followers to know that she’s working on securing a permanent online home for “Daughters.” She has to apply to an online short films site and await acceptance first. “It’ll be online eventually,” she assured.