With a production team made up almost entirely of BYU students and alumni, and with just $400,000 from one angel investor-the Y student who started 1-800-Contacts out of his BYU dorm room-Jared got to make his movie. But before Peluca was even finished, Jared had already set to work with his wife, Jerusha Demke Hess (BA ’10), writing a feature-length version, which he titled Napoleon Dynamite after a guy he met on his mission in Chicago.Īnd, to take a line from Hess’s movie, all of his wildest dreams came true. Peluca made its own waves, winning rave reviews at the 2003 Slamdance Film Festival, a spinoff from Sundance.
