Known for Sound
Jongnic Bontemps, also known as JB is an American composer and musician who has worked on over 50 projects in film, shorts, documentary films, TV series and video games. He is the music director for 2016 skateboarding-focused drama film The Land The soundtrack features collaborations with Erykah Badu and Nas including the song "This Bitter Land". He also wrote the music for the 2018 roller skating documentary United Skates. The hip hop influenced documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Bontemps is a classically trained composer with roots in the church and jazz world as a pianist. He was born in Brooklyn to a Jamaican mother and a Haitian father, who met in New York in the 1970s. He studied music at Yale University, Berklee College of Music and the University of Southern California. becoming a graduate of the Scoring for Motion Picture and Television program at USC. He worked as a software developer and startup executive in New York City and later Silicon Valley before specializing in music. He was selected as a Sundance Lab Composer Fellow in 2013 and received a Time Warner Artist Fellowship in 2014. Bontemps' film Faith Under Fire, premiered on Lifetime in January 2017. His work has been heard in various award winning films at Cannes Film Festival, Warsaw International Film Festival, Pan African Film Festival, American Black Film Festival, as well as on television networks like HBO, BET, Disney and in various cinemas worldwide.
Birthplace
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Filmography
27 films, 2 shows


Give Me Back My Daughter
2025 · 1h 30m
country: Unknown
Renee and her daughter, Imani, are left homeless when Renee loses her job. After a new job interview, Renee is arrested for leaving Imani in their car. She navigates family court reunite with her daughter.
The Devil Ain't Pius
The Devil Ain't Pius
2024 · 27m
country: United States
A grandfather calls his children and grandchildren together to reveal a terrible secret. He long ago sold the soul of one of his grandchildren to the devil for great wealth and now the Devil has come to collect


Where My Memory Began
2024 · 9m
country: Sierra Leone
Four hundred years ago, freed Black folks braved the Atlantic Ocean to travel to Africa. On arrival, they walked from the shore to a tall cotton tree, where they took respite from their journey. When they awoke with renewed strength, they decided to name this place Freedom Town, then Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone. Elder Ballu tries to remember this history and legacy.


Wedding Season
2022 · 1h 39m
country: Canada
Pressured by their immigrant parents to find spouses, two Indian-Americans pretend to date in order to survive a summer of weddings – but find themselves falling for each other as they struggle to balance who they are with who their parents want them to be.


Reopening Night
2021 · 1h 25m
country: United States
This documentary follows the cast, crew and staff of the world-famous Public Theater as they prepare to mount an all-black adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives,” at the open-air Delacorte Theater in New York City. Contending with the ever-present threat of COVID-19 and one of the rainiest Julys on record, the production marks the return of live theatre following more than a year of closures in the city.


Ten Million Throwaways
2021 · 1h 32m
country: United States
A growing consumer appetite for underage performers and violent sex dominates today's porn. Ten Million Throwaways uncovers the dramatic and illegal operating practices of this multi-billion-dollar industry.


My Name Is Pauli Murray
2021 · 1h 31m
country: United States
Overlooked by history, Pauli Murray was a legal trailblazer whose ideas influenced RBG's fight for gender equality and Thurgood Marshall's landmark civil rights arguments. Featuring never-before-seen footage and audio recordings, a portrait of Murray's impact as a non-binary Black luminary: lawyer, activist, poet, and priest who transformed our world.


Last Night in Rozzie
2021 · 1h 20m
country: United States
When a New York lawyer returns to his Boston hometown to reunite his dying friend with his young son, he is forced to finally confront a childhood trauma.


19 Weeks
2020 · 10m
country: Unknown
When Oshun miscarries in the middle of her gender reveal party, she returns home the next morning heartbroken, embarrassed and desperate to move on...that is until her chatty and quirky unborn son visits her, in the hopes to get her to slow down and process the loss.


Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story
2020 · 1h 36m
country: United States
After 16-year-old Cyntoia Brown is sentenced to life in prison, questions about her past, physiology and the law itself call her guilt into question.


Faith Under Fire: The Antoinette Tuff Story
2018 · 1h 25m
country: United States
On the day that Antoinette Tuff considered suicide, she realized that all of her challenges had prepared her for a purpose; to save an Atlanta school under siege from a deranged killer bent on murdering the students.


Candid
2017 · 16m
country: Unknown
In the midst of college application season, Ace struggles with the choice between going off to California to pursue her passion for photography at an art school or staying at home with her father in Atlanta after the recent death of her mother. Ace’s late mother’s memory remains a strong presence as she takes a surreal journey through the city to reconcile her future and her relationship with her father.


Actors Anonymous
2017 · 1h 36m
country: United States
The film adaption of James Franco's popular novel Actors Anonymous, exploring the lives of young actors in Hollywood, from the highs to the lows, to the lies and the heartbreak.


The Land
2016 · 1h 42m
country: United States
Four teenage boys devote their summer to escaping the streets of Cleveland, Ohio, by pursuing a dream life of professional skateboarding. But when they get caught in the web of the local queenpin, their motley brotherhood is tested, threatening to make this summer their last.


Sharia
2016 · 39m
country: United States
Sofiane is an Arab immigrant who lives in the US away from religion, customs, and traditions of his native land. His life is turned upside down as his American wife; Heather, starts making drastic changes in her spiritual beliefs and lifestyle. Although not really excited about Heather's decision, Sofiane puts an act in front of her to look supportive. But as time goes by, Heather's religious practices start to brings back to him old memories of painful experiences, and threaten to unearth a past Sofiane thought was buried forever.