About The Film
Walking the line between mindfulness and adrenaline rush, an American, bipolar, aerialist tries to reconcile her suicidal inclinations, her past life as an air traffic controller and the pressures of training for opening night at the Vietnamese circus.
High Flying Jade is the true story of a bipolar woman from Los Angeles who moved to Vietnam and joined the circus in Hồ Chí Minh City. In the US, Jade was an air traffic controller but repeated attempts at suicide culminated in hospitalization. She was eventually diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder. Now, she tries to manage her unique brain chemistry with learned-mindfulness and focused aerial training. We meet her one week before the opening night of her first ever performance in a real, big top circus.
People
High Flying JadeFlying Jade specializes in aerial silks and lyra. In addition, she directs shows, dances, does partner acro and wide variety of performance arts. She has performed internationally in Austria, Thailand, India and Vietnam. She recently performed and toured with the Ho Chi Minh City Circus and started the first aerial silks class offered in Vietnam.
Katherine SweetmanKatherine Sweetman is an artist, filmmaker and media technologist with work distributed in major film festivals; broadcast on major TV outlets including Cox, Brighthouse Networks and Time Warner; shown in galleries and museums including The Getty Center, Los Angeles. Katherine has an MFA from the University of California, San Diego, a BA in Arts and Technology from California State University, a certificate from the New School University, and she is currently pursing her second MFA in Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.
Jayjit DasguptaIn his first year as a MFA candidate in Production at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Jayjit Dasgupta produced 17 shorts, a record that has yet to be broken. Many of these films landed in festival circuits and garnered awards including SO F*CKING HAPPY FOR YOU starring Scout Durwood of MTV’s Mary + Jane, Christine Nangle of Inside Amy Schumer, Dave Hill of Reno 911 and Richard Pierre-Louis of Barbershop 2. In 2016, he was awarded the Jean and Ruth Negulesco Fellowship for Producing. This past summer, he was invited to be a part of the prestigious internship program at the Television Academy.
Nami MelumadNami Melumad is a Los Angeles based film & tv composer, originally from Tel Aviv, Israel. Her credits include over 120 films, tv series and theater productions. Nominated for two Hollywood Music in Media Awards in 2018 (Miss Arizona, Passage), her works have screened worldwide, claiming multiple international awards, including Best Score for a Short at Fimucite, the Tenerife international film-music festival - out of 917 films. She was also nominated for an HMMA for her feature score, This Day Forward in 2017.
Brandon GadowBrandon Gadow is a San Diego based filmmaker and visual effects artist.