R. Zoe Judd

Zoe's first official foray into film making was in her 1986 high school film communications class. Though this was her first structured experience behind the camera, Zoe had fallen in love with movies many years before. Her father fostered her love of film making, making sure she had a VHS camera and VCR for editing. Before that she and her best friend had access to an old super 8mm film camera. They'd spend weekends making short films and editing on an old film splicer. Her love for horror started at a young age as well. Her father would rent the newest horror when it came out on VHS and watch it with her. In her tweens and teen years she lived for Friday nights spent watching USA Network's "Up All Night". She dreamed of one day making her own movies, but that was all she thought it was... a dream. Zoe held onto this dream throughout college, working on several productions doing anything that got her on set. Finally in 1994, she decided to make her dream of being a film maker a reality. Jumping in with both feet, she produced and directed a short documentary on the history of the town she was living in. That documentary brought her to the attention of a local charitable organization that hired her to document their annual parade and diversity celebration. She went on to work for them for five years. In 2001, wanting to expand past documentaries, Zoe formed Frankly Zoe Productions, and began directing narrative shorts, television commercials, music videos, and feature length movies. Working hard, she received her industry credentials for several large film festivals. Her first non-documentary feature length film, 'Devil's Grove' had its premiere at the New York City Horror Film Festival and won Best Special Effects at the Fright Night Film Festival. Wanting to give back to her community and work with kids, she started the Youth Summer Movie Project and out of that grew the Frankly Film Fest in 2005. Intended to be a one off film festival at its inception, she held two for the Youth Summer Movie Project. In 2015, Un-Con, the Unconventional Convention, invited the F3: Frankly Film Fest to be part of their convention. In September of 2020, Zoe accepted a position as the Executive Director of the HorrorHound Film Festival. HorrorHound was established in 2005 in Sharonville, Ohio and is a semi annual convention and film festival. It is one of the largest genre specific conventions and film festivals in the US and takes place in March and September every year. R Zoe Judd continues her work in film, directing and producing features and shorts.