About jonni peppers

I’m Jonni, I’ve been animating for around 18 years, since I was a little kid. I’m nonbinary and my pronouns are she/her. I’m currently based in Chicago, where I’m attending SAIC for the MFA film program, graduating in 2025.

Over the past 8 years I’ve made over 6 hours of hand drawn animation work. The inspiration for my work is sourced from my very unusual and emotionally tumultuous life, and my high output of work at such a young age is a part of me processing intense and bizarre childhood trauma. I am also fueled by my obsessions with religion, spirituality, loneliness. In my worldbuilding, I seek to discover an in-between zone of cartoonish emotion and observed reality.

I graduated from CalArts in 2019 from the Film/Video program with a focus on experimental animation. At CalArts, I finished Wasteland, a 80 min anthology feature film of 5 thematically related stories that take place in the same location, concluding with my 45 min thesis film The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia. After I graduated, I independently created a 10 episode miniseries called Secrets and Lies in a Town of Sinners, and a follow up 90 min feature film Barber Westchester, both projects funded entirely from individual monthly donations by my Patreon supporters.

I’ve worked for Frederator Studios, Sony Pictures Animation, Buzzfeed, and Bento Box Entertainment, among others. Currently, I’m a lead programmer at Slamdance Film Festival.

In 2022, Ottawa International Animation Festival hosted a retrospective of my work, included me in their official shorts jury, and screened Barber Westchester in their feature competition:

“Jonni Phillips has amassed a devoted online following for her introspective and deeply funny films. In a loose style combining drawing, paper cutouts and digital techniques, Jonni explores the banal and profound experiences that make up everyday life. We follow her characters as they lose and find themselves in monotonous day jobs, foreign places and new relationships. It’s her quirky narrative voice and collaborative spirit that makes Phillips a must-know emerging creator in the world of independent animation.” -Ben Compton

Barber Westchester was featured at New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival in Japan, where it won a special jury award:

"This movie fully embodies the meaning, power and possibilities of the technique of animation. All the visuals are carefully calculated, and if you underestimate them, it delivers a strong punch. Its unique style was derived to strike the times more strongly, and its drawn lines are cute, but are actually frighteningly delicate. With tricky motions, the viewer is skillfully entwined with the story. When the 90 minutes had passed, I shuddered at the matching of theme and method. We felt resolution and conviction for being an animation… It is an out-of-the-ordinary film that captures the mood of this era, which is sharpened by the earnest desire to find answers, while at the same time combining the ingenuity to entertain and the pursuit of originality. The most important discovery of the decade." -Ayumu Watanabe

Thanks for checking out my website, if you want a good place to start, check out this playlist of my series “The Blindfold”. It’s a series I’ve been working on since 2015, and I consider it my main body of work. Each page on my website goes into detail about each project if you would like to learn more. The “more” section includes everything I’ve done on the side.

I am available for paid work-

Email: jonni@jonniphillips.com

Note: As of 2023, I changed my name to Jonni Peppers. I formerly went by Jonni Phillips, but I decided to not use that last name anymore for personal reasons.