Jonathan Hammond

Jonathan Brandon Hammond is an American film director, film editor, screenwriter and film producer who directed the films Expect A Miracle: Finding Light in the Darkness of a Pandemic, Isabel (2018), Kathy (2018), We All Die Alone (2021), and Fireflies in the Dusk (2025). Hammond won the Copper Wing Award for short film directing at the Phoenix Film Festival, a Best Writing Award at San Diego International Fringe Festival, and received multiple nominations for a Pacific Southwest Emmy Award at National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Early life

Hammond is the son of Joseph and Belva Gadlage. A grant recipient from National Endowment for the Arts, he grew up in Decatur, Illinois and attended Eisenhower High School. and later to Los Angeles. His film Expect A Miracle depicts San Diego's handle on AIDS in the 1980s, a time where sexual orientation towards the same gender was confined.

Hammond was a panelist at San Diego Comic-Con and compared being selected to screen his film Kathy there as exciting as having an Emmy nomination. He was a judge for the Minneapolis 48 Hour Film Project in 2020 and his film Before depicted a dinner party within the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hammond and Jodi Cilley talked about the challenges faced when recruiting talent when turning true local stories into films. He is part of an expanded network of LGBT filmmakers who have influence to project styles of horror.

Kathy short film Kathy is a 2018 horror short film directed by Hammond and written by Hammond and Ryan Roach. The film stars Samantha Ginn, Cristyn Chandler, Suzana Norberg, Frank DiPalermo and Jared Sarvis, and was made in San Diego. The story was originally written as non-fiction about a gay local writer's early life within his strict, faithful family. It was then redrafted as a horror film, taking place in the 1980s. Hammond mentioned being influenced on inspecting important topics of interest to come up with characters of a different degree. Kathy screened at Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, Catalina Film Festival, Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival, Indie Short Fest, San Diego Film Week and IndieX Film Fest. It was distributed by Alter.

2020s short films

Hammond's short film We All Die Alone, co-written by Ryan Roach, premiered at FilmOut San Diego in 2021. It won 12 awards across over 50 festivals. and it was inspired by the works of Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese and Edgar Wright. Film Threat praised the film, scoring it 8 out of 10.

Hammond's films MascLooking and Fireflies in the Dusk premiered in 2025 at Dances with Films and the Cleveland International Film Festival.

Filmography 2025 Fireflies in the Dusk''

Accolades