Asher Jelinsky is a Los Angeles-based director and writer originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their perspective as a nonbinary filmmaker fuels a passion for character-driven stories about outsiders and the resilient quest for human connection. Asher’s short film Miller & Son was a top ten finalist for the Academy Awards-Oscars^® in 2020 and won the gold medal Student Academy Award, the BAFTA Student Film Award, and the Cannes Lions Young Director Award. Overall, Asher’s short films have garnered awards and nominations at over 70 film festivals around the world, including Clermont-Ferrand, BFI London, Ashland, and St. Louis. Currently, Asher is developing their debut feature, Julian, which received the SFFILM Rainin Screenwriting Grant and the California Arts Council Fellowship. Asher earned an M.F.A. in Directing from the American Film Institute Conservatory and won the Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award for Directing, presented by AFI Fest.

Julian — A nonbinary medical student falls in love with an older trans man and experiences the freedom of feeling truly seen for the first time. But as misaligned expectations emerge, mounting insecurities threaten to tear them apart.