GENEVIEVE grew up on the Isle of Wight, three miles off the coast of England in a family run hotel in a typical English seaside resort town. Growing up on American movies, Genevieve’s dream was always to be in the film business. On leaving school, she moved to the mainland and the big city – London, and started banging on doors of film companies to try and gain experience. After a year of working on several independent productions, documentaries and news programs, Genevieve attended Bournemouth Film School but dropped out after 6 months to form Living Spirit Pictures with her business partner and fellow filmmaker Chris Jones.
Within 6 months of leaving film school, Living Spirit produced their first feature – THE RUNNER – a high ambition action thriller. The film received a royal premiere at BAFTA and Genevieve entered The Guinness Book of Records as Britain’s youngest feature film producer at the age of 19. WHITE ANGEL quickly followed, starring British classical actor Peter Firth and although shooting began with only a budget of eleven thousand pounds ($22k), a theatrical release in the UK’s multiplexes was soon achieved. Publicity relied upon no budget and the Living Spirit team to hype up the movie against a big Hollywood blockbuster that opened the same weekend. They succeeded but at a cost, they were wrongfully arrested and the film was impounded. After six months, charges were dropped, but much of the damage was done. It was while in the jail cell that the idea of The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook was born. The book soon became the definitive guide to independent filmmaking in Britain and Living Spirit went on to make their third feature URBAN GHOST STORY with Genevieve directing. The film, starring Jason Connery and Billy Boyd, received a theatrical release in the UK, achieved great reviews along with nominations for The British Independent Film Awards – Best Director and Best Film. It’s making was also documented in the following updated edition of The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook (now in it’s third UK edition). The book series has been so successful that the series has no expanded with The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook US (Genevieve Jolliffe and Chris Jones), The Guerilla Film Makers Movie Blueprint (Chris Jones) and The Documentary Film Makers Handbook (Genevieve Jolliffe and Andrew Zinnes) where more stories ensue from filmmakers of jail cells, terrorist attacks and deadly situations when making their movies. The Documentary Film Makers Handbook has once more proved to be a success for The Guerilla series filling a void in the market and doing phenomenal business worldwide.
In addition to their narrative work, Living Spirit Pictures has produced a myriad of industrial videos and independent documentaries (in the UK, US and Australia), most notably the show, Stranger Than Fiction for Channel 4. They also began a successful series of master classes based on the books, which they conduct in London, Los Angeles and on tour.
Genevieve now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and writing partner, Andrew Zinnes and their 7 month old daughter. The two have recently sold a feature script, Absolute Angels, to Warner Brothers to be directed by Genevieve, and are currently working on a project, Undead and Unwed, with Hollywood producer Robert Lawrence (Clueless, Die Hard with A Vengeance). Their next script, Back From the Dead, comes out in the Fall of 2007.
Genevieve is repped by ICM and Mosaic Media Group in Los Angeles and Casarotto in London.