Jason Cortlund was born in Oakland, CA and raised in rural Oregon. He earned a master’s in screenwriting at University of Texas and was a postgraduate fellow at the James Michener Center for Writers. He wrote and co-directed the feature films Now, Forager (2012) and Barracuda (co-directed with Juia Halperin) which premiered in competition at SXSW in 2017, starring Allison Tolman and JoBeth Williams. It was distributed in the U.S. by Orion Pictures/Samuel Goldwyn. He and Halperin were nominated for a 2012 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director. Their current projects include Au Pair, a feature-length suspense drama set in France, as well as Lumberjunkies, a crime series about timber poaching in the Pacific Northwest.
During his residency at MacDowell he wrote a first draft of a new feature-length screenplay, working title Harriers and continued research and story development for Lumberjunkies.
