13. Venita Ozols-Graham - Director, Writer, Producer & First Assistant Director

Meet Venita Ozols-Graham! Venita is Director, Writer, Producer, and First Assistant Director. Venita splits her time between Washington State and Los Angeles and is an award-winning filmmaker and veteran of the film festival circuit. After graduating from Pratt Institute in New York City, Venita moved to Los Angeles and was accepted into the D.G.A.’s Assistant Director’s Training Program. Venita joined the D.G.A. as an Assistant Director and A.D.’d on both features & television shows, she worked her way up to First Assistant Director/Associate Producer on shows like The X-Files, CSI, Veronica Mars, The District, Star Trek DS-9, and The Shield. About 10 years ago, Venita started her own production company called Wanderlust Film and she began directing and writing her own projects. Venita’s first feature film, which she directed & produced called Black Widows, was distributed across streaming platforms by Gravitas Ventures. For the past few years, Venita has been honing her craft as a writer/director by making award-winning short films including - Amy’s in the Freezer, Angel, Chicken, and Lift. Her latest short, Who Wants Dessert? which stars Sean Young, has garnered several awards and is currently finishing its festival run. Most recently, Venita has been busy raising funds for her next short film – The Ossan which will begin production in October of 2022. I met Vanita in 2019 when we both were traveling the film festival circuit with our short films and we hit it off right away. I love how passionate Venita is about filmmaking and about supporting others in their own artistic endeavors. I’m excited to bring you our chat where we learned more about each other, talk about what it takes to crowdfund successfully, and about Venita’s new project The Ossan.

Connect with Venita on Instagram & Twitter

Check out Venita’s newest project The Ossan and please consider donating, on its website

Venita’s Bio -

Upon graduating Pratt Institute in New York, Venita Ozols-Graham moved to Los Angeles and was accepted into the Director’s Guild of America’s Assistant Director’s Training Program. She began a career in production at all the major studios and production companies in Hollywood. Once she became a DGA member, she worked on both features and television shows, working her way up to First Assistant Director/Associate Producer on shows like The X-Files, CSI, Veronica Mars, The District, Star Trek DS-9, and The Shield. She created a production company, Wanderlust Films LLC, and produced and directed a short film based on a feature she wrote called Used Body Parts. Her first festival run garnered several awards including Best Thriller Short. The next Wanderlust production was the indie feature Black Widows, which she produced and directed and was released by Gravitas Ventures on many cable platforms including Dish, Comcast, Amazon Prime as well as VOD and DVD. Since then, Venita has written, produced, and directed many short films, including the multi-award-winning films Amy’s in the Freezer, Angel, Chicken, and Lift, winners of Best Thriller, Best Horror, Best Comedy, and Best Romantic Comedy awards. Her recently produced short film, Who Wants Dessert?, stars Sean Young and is currently finishing its festival run, having garnered many awards including Best Thriller, Best Short, Best Director, and best produced Screenplay. She is currently crowdfunding to produce her next film, The Ossan at TheOssanMovie.com. Production begins in October 2022.