Raven Jackson, 'Finding Transcendence in Image, Sound, and the Void'

Raven Jackson is an award-winning filmmaker, poet, and photographer from Tennessee. Her work often explores landscapes of indefinable experiences and emotions, intimacy, connection, and the body’s relationship to nature. Recently nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature and a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director, Raven’s debut narrative film, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, made in partnership with Tender, PASTEL, and A24, world-premiered in the US Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and was named one of the top ten movies of the year by The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and RogerEbert.com.

A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow and a featured artist on Kahlil Joseph’s BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, she has served as a Story Editor for HBO's adaptation of Sula, based on Toni Morrison's novel, and co-wrote an episode of the Apple TV+ Series, Surface. Her short films Nettles and A Guide to Breathing Underwater are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. Stories From a Place Where All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, the companion book for her debut feature, is currently out from A24. Her photography can be found in the book, as well as in BOMB Magazine. Her chapbook of poetry, little violences, is available from Cutbank Literary Magazine.