Jolene Rodriguez - President at Broken English Productions

Angle on Producers with Carolina Groppa

Jolene Rodriguez is the President at Broken English Productions, the newly launched film finance arm of Grandave Capital. They launched last June with a focus on movie and TV projects centered on Latinx stories, told by Latinx filmakers.

Previous to this new role, she was development and production executive art Sony’s Screen Gems’ for over a decade.

During her tenure, Jolene leveraged her position to build an impressive list of industry contacts, A-list talent, producers and film financiers. She played a critical role in setting up an Untitled Gabrielle Union rom-com, and Untitled Gigi Guerrero Latinx horror.

Jolene recently Executive Produced the 2019 high profile Cannes Marché feature, Keyhole Garden starring Zoe Saldana.

During her more than 10-year tenure at Screen Gems, Jolene was able to build an impressive list of industry contacts, A-list talent, producers and film financiers. She played a critical role in setting up an Untitled Gabrielle Union rom-com, and Untitled Gigi Guerrero Latinx horror.

In addition, she is on the Advisory Board of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF).

She’s was recognized as one of the Powerful and Influential Latinos in Entertainment of 2019 by the Imagen Foundation. The non-profit encourages the positive portrayals of Latinos in all forms of the entertainment media and to reward the excellence of those entities or individuals whose productions elevate the image and status of all Latinos.

Jolene’s origin story is inspiring as well. She held down a full time college class load, part time job, part time internship, while also parenting her two babies, one of whom was two weeks old at the start of her internship at Sony.

If that doesn’t say B O S S, I don’t know what does… This week, we chat:

• How to stop making excuses for your dreams

• Navigating the high highs and low lows

• Her wish for Latinx stories in the next decade