We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jia Wertz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jia below.

Alright, Jia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

When I was about 20-years-old I read Rubin Carter’s book The Sixteenth Round, and was very moved by his words. Carter was wrongfully convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, and after losing all of his appeals and really having nowhere to turn, he wrote the book as a last attempt to seek help from anyone that would listen. It was a heart-wrenching read. His raw account of how his life had been ripped apart and the emotional and physical hell he was going through left a lasting mark on me and always stayed in the back of my mind, even today.

Fast-forward to 2014 I listened to the Serial podcast and was shocked and horrified by how Adnan Syed was treated and wrongfully put in prison. Hearing his story and remembering Rubin Carter’s words, made me want to do something to help people who’ve been wrongfully convicted, so a friend and I organized the very first in-person fundraiser for Adnan to raise money for his legal defense fund. While planning that fundraiser, my friend introduced me to Jeffrey Deskovic, who had also been wrongfully convicted of rape and murder and had spent 16 years in prison. Jeff spoke at our fundraiser and that is how we first met.

A few years later, while trying to figure out what more I could do to support this cause, I was at Adnan’s post-conviction hearing and there was a camera crew there filming the HBO documentary series The Case Against Adnan Syed. With my 20 years of experience in photography, I started to think that films would be a great way to reach a broader audience and that was something I would enjoy doing while also supporting the cause. That led me to enrolling in a documentary film program at New York Film Academy – which was the beginning of my new career.

When I decided to go into filmmaking, I knew I wanted to focus on true crime films about wrongful convictions, and Jeff was the first person I approached since I knew him personally.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I decided to go into filmmaking, I knew I wanted to focus solely on films about wrongful convictions – and Jeff was the first person I approached since I knew him personally. And at that time, he was the only person I knew who had been wrongfully incarcerated.

I started filming a short documentary as part of the final project at New York Film Academy, that project ended up seeing success on the festival circuit with 17 official selections, won a few awards, and was picked up by Amazon Prime. This was the beginning of my new career in film. I’ve continued to tell Jeff’s story and just completed a feature film about his life. This work has led to doing advocacy work, speaking at festivals, colleges, conferences, and summits – which was one of my goals when starting this new venture. Speaking at colleges to students who will be our future lawyers, jurors, detectives, or police officers is especially important as it opens their eyes to the existence of wrongful convictions at a very early stage of their lives – before they embark on their careers.

It seems that wrongful convictions are not on the average person’s radar, and yet there is a large population impacted by it.

There are far more wrongful convictions than you would think. A very conservative estimate is that about 2-5% of people incarcerated in the US are wrongfully imprisoned. At this rate, it could mean tens or even hundreds of thousands of people – the numbers are staggering.

Today, Jeff is far from the only person I know who has had this lived experience, I know so many people who have been unjustly imprisoned – it happens far more than we know. And each and every story is beyond heartbreaking. It impacts countless people, not only the person who is incarcerated but their family and friends – the reaches of this injustice go far beyond personal tragedy.

My future goal is to tell the stories of people who are currently wrongfully convicted so I can help amplify their voice and raise awareness of their circumstances in hopes to get them any assistance possible.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In April of 2020, Conviction was scheduled to premiere at The Anthology Film Archives in New York, which I was very excited about, but just a month before the screening date, the pandemic hit the US and all theaters were shut down – postponing the premiere.

After working so hard to switch careers, make my first film, and achieve the difficult task of getting the film into festivals – less than 1% of films that are submitted actually get selected – I was feeling quite disappointed and defeated when I lost the opportunity to screen the film for an audience. And after that first postponement, festival after festival starting cancelling all their screenings as well, making it so the film would never see the light of day. To say I was disheartened is an understatement.

With the world essentially shut down, I was sitting at home feeling bad for myself. But decided that I would not allow this free time to go to waste. I researched online courses and found that many established filmmakers were also stuck at home and they were hosting webinars and zoom calls to share their knowledge and give back to the community.

Over a period of four months I joined 43 of these filmmaking webinars and learned as much as I could about distribution. This led me to getting my film distributed on Amazon Prime, where people can still watch it today. It ended up truly being a blessing in disguise that I had to look elsewhere to get the film screened, as I may never have been able to get the film to stream on Amazon had it went on to have the originally scheduled theatrical screenings.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I am definitely a perfectionist, and have always wanted to put my best foot forward and nothing less. However, I’ve learned that this can often be to the detriment of my success. While I am still trying to perfect something, others are putting their work out in the world and moving on to other projects – this is a disadvantage that I often create for myself. I have had to realize that perfection is the enemy of progress. I’ve tried really hard to unlearn this habit and focus on putting my work out into the world, learn from any mistakes, and use those learnings to make the next project better.

If I had waited to release Conviction because it is definitely far from perfect in my eyes, I would never have had the chance to work on and complete my second film. I also wouldn’t have received invaluable audience feedback that I was able to incorporate into my next film.

It’s been a tough lesson to unlearn but a very valuable one.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jiawertz.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jiadocs/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jiawertz
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiawertz
• Twitter: https://www.jiawertz.com/
• Other: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08F9XPHB4

Image Credits
Maxim Ratnikov Priyanca Rao Dawnelle Salant Ramsey Kunkel Michael Wertz