2010 Princess Grace Award
Film Graduate Scholarship
Nominated by: School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Additional Grants:
2024 Special Project Grant
2015 Artist Academy Participant

Jessica Bardsley is an artist-scholar working across film, writing, and studio art. Her films have screened across the U.S. and internationally at festivals like Sundance, CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel, EMAF, RIDM, True/False, and on the Criterion Channel. She is the recipient of various awards, including a Princess Grace Award in Film, Grand Prize at 25FPS, the Eileen Maitland Award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Best Short Film at Punto de Vista, numerous Harvard Film Study Center fellowships, and a North Shorts Grant and Residency. Her first feature film, The Cave Without a Name, was a finalist for the 2022-2023 Venice Biennale’s Cinema College.

Her research and writing have been supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Terra Foundation for American Art, and the Henry Luce Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies. She received a Ph.D. in Film and Visual Studies from Harvard University, an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a B.A. from the New College of Florida. She is Assistant Professor of Undergraduate Film and Television at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.