Hi! I'm James P. Axiotis, an international television and film producer with over 30 years of experience developing and producing content throughout the East and West Coast markets within the United States.
As an immigrant adopted from an orphanage in Athens, Greece, I have dedicated much of my life to addressing issues surrounding immigration, displaced children, and social injustice, especially when it comes to women's rights. I am also currently working on my own film, Georgia, which tells the true story of my young single mother forced to give up her “illegitimate” child in Greece.
Growing up in Southern California with my adopted family, I first went on set at the age of 13 for an ABC after-school special, “Mighty Moose and the Quarterback Kid”, and knew instantly film was the career for me. I started work as a production assistant on television shows and soon became a post-production supervisor at NBC network. By age 24, I was one of the network’s youngest producers. Having worked on shows for Facebook/Instagram, I have also had the opportunity to learn the huge importance of utilizing social media to increase viewership and awareness.
Outside of my normal work, I have served two terms on the National Board for the Producers Guild of America, where I am also a part of the International Committee and the AAPI Committee, and am a member of the Producers Guild of Europe, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, BFI, and the Greek America Foundation.
I am also passionate about supporting and empowering others in any way I can, and more recently, this passion led me to help local Los Angeles-based non-profits such as Project Angel Food and Fix’n Fidos. What has perhaps had the greatest impact on me personally, though, is when I got to serve as an officer for the Children of War Foundation (COWF). My time there gave me the opportunities to, for example, travel to Ukraine on behalf of COWF after the recent outbreak of war to hand-deliver half a million dollars worth of medical supplies to two hospitals, as well as to deliver aid for a COWF-run school for refugees on the Jordanian-Syrian border. On both of these trips, I was able to use my knowledge of film and storytelling to document the work and spread the message of what COWF does in helping refugee children worldwide.
Having been from another country myself, as I grew in my career and life, I found myself looking outward more and more from the U.S. to expand not only my philanthropic work but also my professional work.
In 2021, I was able to expand JPA Productions to England, creating JPA Productions London. By 2022, I became an Academy Circle member at BAFTA, where I was able to take the opportunity of having a chair in the new BAFTA Princess Anne Theatre to honor my mother's memory and have her name placed on it. With this new branch of JPA Productions, I plan to continue creating meaningful content with an international mindset. Today, along with working on telling my own mother’s story, I am currently an executive producer on projects in production, such as Another Place, a documentary by Jhizet Panosian detailing the lives of refugees that resettled throughout Europe, and a relaunch of the hit 90’s show on PBS, Reading Rainbow, which promotes childhood literacy.