A 25-year-old student from Grimsby has been making waves across the pond – in Hollywood.

Jenni Hawkins upped sticks to move to Los Angeles five years ago to carry on her education in film. Juggling multiple jobs with her studies, one of her class projects was submitted and featured at the LA Student Film Festival.

Her film, New Around Here, is centred around Jenni’s perspective as an international student living in the US – with many of her inspirations coming from her Grimsby upbringing.

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“I had a project for a class, and we had to make a documentary film. It was very low budget, but came out kinda cute and I submitted it to this film festival which was really fun. It was hectic because that same week I was working at another film festival, it was crazy but fun, but that’s LA!” Jenni told Grimsby Live.

Many of Jenni’s friends and fellow students are from places where English is not their first language, which acted as an inspiration for her documentary. “I thought it would be fun to showcase a slice of life to show some of the things that some of the people who aren’t international students aren’t aware of like life moving to a new country and the behind-the-scenes of that.”

Jenni has been stateside for five years. Originally moving in 2019. Moving from LA to Chicago back to LA, Jenni had a gap year back home in Grimsby to work and save up for her next set of studies working at the Laceby McDonald’s. In America, one of her many job titles includes being a film editor and artist.

While working at the McDonald’s on the same street that Jenni grew up on, people would hear her newly found American twang and ask her where she was from.

“It’s crazy being at a film festival in Hollywood. The people I was working with were so sweet and helpful, but the one where I was working at was a bit more high-brow. There were celebrities there, but the one I was a part of was for film students from all around the country and the whole world. It was the best of both worlds, you get to see the stars and then see students just trying to make it work.”

Despite the 5,344-mile distance between the West Coast state and Grimsby, Jenni doesn’t see much of a difference between her two lives. “This sounds really weird, and a weird thing to compare but Hollywood reminds me a lot of Grimsby. Here it really is not that glamorous, in the movies it’s all glitzy and celebrities but it’s actually kind of gross. A lot of the shops really look like Grimsby town. It’s such a world away but feels kind of familiar with the history.”

Jenni felt the opportunity to study film in the land of movies was too good to turn down. “If I’m going to move, I’m going to move to the other side of the world. In the US, the film industry is really who you know and as much as I value my education, I want the opportunity to meet people.”