About Us
Jeanette Russ was born in Mexico City 1977 and studied at the Ibero-American University, where she received her undergraduate with honors in Communication in 2001 with her thesis titled "The Irony, the Excess, Shakespeare and MTV -Peter Greenaway and Music Videos".
Her passion for movies made her study screenwriting and focused on editing film and commercials, a craft she has been practicing since 2001.
She directed the short film titled “The island of the Dolls (©1998, re-edited in 2015), as well as the short documentary titled “1985®”.
Awards and screenings
1985® - short film The Indiefest Film Awards. Award of Recognition. Winner in the short documentary section for the October 2017 season.
1985: Heroes Among Ruins® (excerpt) Official selection for the exhibition titled “Aftershocks: Collective Imagery of the 1985 Earthquake”.
For the "1985®" fiction project
- Participated on the “Visitors program” at the 2015 Berlinale Co-Production Market.
- Bolivia Lab 2014, 4th Internacional Screenwriting Workshop. Winner of the post-production counseling and possible co-production with Capibara Films in Venezuela.
- Tareula II Program 2010. “Production and Scriptwriting Course for Professional European and Latin American Producers”
- Project selection for the 2008 Strategic Partners events in Halifax, Canada.
- 5th India-Mexico Coproduction Forum at the 2008 “Expresión en Corto Film Festival”.
- Official selection on the Ibero-American Films Crossing Borders course at the 23rd Guadalajara Film Festival in 2007.
- Cinema Project Development Fund at the 2007 IMCINE.
- Official selection in the unpublished screenplay section at the 29th New Latin American Film Festival in Havana, Cuba (2007).
- Winner in the "Alejandro Galindo Screenwriting Support Workshop" taught by Vicente Leñero. SOGEM, 2006.
- Feature screenplay selected at IMCINE's 2005 Screenwriting Support Workshop.
Currently in post-production of her feature documentary "1985: Heroes Among Ruins®", as director and producer and also securing completion funds for the "1985®" (fiction) screenplay.
Tomás Sampedro is the producer of the “1985: Heroes among ruins®” documentary, and a passionate film buff. A wind energy quality inspector by profession, in Zaragoza (Spain), he studied instrumentation and control technician in Zaragoza (Spain) and got involved with this project about civil protection worldwide and humanitarian labour solidarity shown by Mexicans in disaster situations.
What is “1985®”?
“1985®” is not just a number or a sad year for Mexico. “1985®” is the title of a movie screenplay written by Jeanette Russ in 2005 to try to tell a story about love and hope which changed the lives of many people. It is about a moment when people got together for a common goal.
A fiction film needs a lot of money and making it happen is very hard. That is why and because the amount of available footage after almost a decade of research (which actually started in 2005), the shooting of “1985: Heroes Among Ruins®” documentary started in 2013.
During all this time, new footage has been found about witnesses supporting several theories about the 1985 earthquake, which include, those of the miracle babies from Mexico's General Hospital as well as several national and international figures involved in the rescue and humanitarian aid operations during such earthquake and the creation of one of the most iconic rescue brigades in Mexico and around the world: the International Rescue Brigade Topos Tlatelolco Azteca (B.I.R.T.A.), better known to the people as the “ The Aztec Moles”.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Mexico City earthquakes we showed an excerpt of the documentary feature in 2015 at the Mexico City Museum for the exhibition titled “Aftershocks: Collective imagery of the 1985 earthquake”. Since we want to bring people hope and foster prevention, we're currently showing the population to support the earthquakes that happened in September 7th and 19th, 2017.
Therefore, “1985®” is actually a trilogy, an independent project made with love and affection. We hope to be able to share our experiences throughout these twelve years of work.