Helle Jensen, Director of Miss Rosewood
Helle Jensen
In this profile series, Revry is highlighting authentic contributors to the LGBTQ media and entertainment community. We ask questions to find out who they are and where they are going in the future. The questions remain the same but the answers tell their unique story. It’s time to explore and celebrate true representation beyond the limits of Hollywood.
Helle Jensen is a Danish director, producer, and cinematographer. Her documentary feature, MISS ROSEWOOD, played in festivals worldwide, and won the audience award and a special mention called the Premio Maguey, at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in Mexico. It also won Best Documentary Feature at The Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival in Israel. In addition, Helle served as director of photography on GREENCARD WARRIORS, a narrative feature that won several film festivals, and 15-40, an internationally award-winning narrative short. Helle has an MFA in cinematography from American Film Institute Conservatory, and got her undergraduate degree from Fatamorgana Copenhagen International Center of Photography. Since then, Helle has had several photography exhibitions in Copenhagen, New York, and London, and worked closely alongside masters of cinematography such as Villmos Zsigmond, ASC, and Vittorio Storaro, ASC, AIC. As a storyteller, Helle desires to illuminate marginalized characters who do extraordinary things. Currently, she’s filming a documentary about her mother’s journey to survive breast cancer called, LEARN TO LIVE WITH CANCER. She also worked on WHEN YOU GET THE CALL, another deeply personal documentary based on the death of a dear friend, which inspired Helle to go on a road trip and seek out answers to where our consciousness goes when we die.
What are you best known for?
The non scripted documentary film MISS ROSEWOOD. This award winning film was a labor of love, 10 years following Rose in New York - Las Vegas and London and 2 years of editing. The world tour the film did was an amazing reward to see that it touched people's hearts with the sweet, stage personality of Rose, the protagonist in the film. She is an extraordinary artist that performs in New York and London 2022 @ The Box.
What is the first thing you worked on?
I am a Cinematographer AFI alumni and the first film festival I took part in was with our thesis film 15-40. True story from II world war about a tennis match where one plays for pride, the other his life. Black and White short film that won several international film awards.
What are you working on that no one knows about yet?
For a while I have been working with screen writer Jacqueline DeJohn on a film script that involves a ménage à trois between JFK, Marilyn Monroe and J Edgar Hoover. We have for years been doing a lot of research and with the lockdown the last pieces came together. To keep it real all the actors in front of the camera, be from our Queer community as nothing is what it seems.