Born on Christmas Eve 1982 in Grass Valley, California, Jennifer Wollowic grew up in the Bay Area of Northern California. After graduating from Acalanes High School, she received a BA in Anthropology and a BA Cinema from San Francisco State University in 2006. Her focus is on participatory documentaries with youth. She uses film as a medium to engage kids and teens in conversations about their own experiences as a way for them to communicate to their larger communities. In 2006, she spent 9 months in Hunters Point, San Francisco collaborating with the fifth graders of the school to create her first short film. Capturing the voice of the youth, the film is being used to recruit tutors and gather support for the school.
For Our Street Family is her second film and first community based photography project. Collaborating with a First Nations Teen Center the media projects focus on the perspectives of participants and their desire to be heard though a playful research methodology. The film is part of her Masters Degree in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Jennifer is currently working on her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from at the University of British Columbia.