Award-winning writer and filmmaker Jacob Strunk hails from the dark woods of Wisconsin. His narrative films have screened in competition and by invitation across the world. His 2002 film Valhalla was short-listed for a Student Academy Award, and he has received filmmaking grants from Kodak and Fotokem.
In early 2024, he directed the celebrity-driven talk show Grave Conversations, co-produced and hosted by David Dastmalchian in association with Good Fiend Films, Elan Gale’s TheYearOfElan Productions, and Titan Casket; with guests including Kate Siegel, Mike Flanagan, and Matthew Lillard, the show amassed over six million organic views in its first three weeks. He is currently developing a feature adaptation of the cult classic DC/Vertigo comic FACE alongside the original author, legendary madman Peter Milligan.
He continues to work extensively in the documentary world with an emphasis on social equity and policy reform. His feature documentary The Green Standard ended an award-winning festival run when it hit VOD platforms worldwide in 2018. He has produced and directed travel and docuseries for Lionsgate and Legendary Pictures, as well as promotional content for properties including the John Wick, Evil Dead, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space franchises. Other recent collaborators include Disney, Funny or Die, Quibi, BOOM! Studios, The Jim Henson Company, Nerdist Industries, Envy/Optic Gaming, Roku, Mission Control Media, The Music Center, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, Defy Media, Screen Junkies, Awkward Family Photos, the Mona Lisa Foundation, and the Smithsonian’s Wilson Center.
His fiction has been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize and the Glimmer Train short story award, as well as a New Rivers Press book prize, and featured in publications as diverse as The Writing Disorder, Coffin Bell, and Marrow Magazine. The short story collection Screaming in Tongues was published in 2023.
Jacob holds both a BA in film production and MFA in creative writing and teaches film production, screenwriting, and media at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He lives in Los Angeles with two rescue fish, a few framed movie posters, and the ghost of his cat, Stephen. He makes films. He tells stories. He has to.
