Jared Hess
Born: 1979
Where: Preston, Idaho, USA
The director attracted attention with his feature debut Napoleon Dynamite.
Raised a Mormon in a family of six boys, he based the $200,000 movie on his own family and set in in his home town.
While attending school he worked as a camera assistant on films being shot in Utah and California.
"I just wanted to do the type of comedy that I always wanted to see. I had never seen a real true underdog drawing unicorns in class like I used to"
He studied film at Brigham Young University where he met his wife Jerusha and also made the award-winning short Peluca.
The movie was chosen as one of the 12 short films to compete in competition at the 2003 Slamdance Film Festival.
Napoleon Dynamite, starring Jon Heder as the school uber-geek, was filmed around Hess's home town of Preston.
