Shannon Silva is a multi-modal filmmaker from Austin, Texas and now based in Wilmington, North Carolina. Fluidly moving through non-fiction, narrative, animation, and experimental modes, she allows each film’s focus to find its appropriate production process. Autobiographical at their core, her films meditate on issues of class, gender, and memory instability. Most recently, due to personal illness, her work is contemplating the challenges of physical disability, cultural rituals of gathering during isolation, and preserving effects of community.

Over the past two decades, her films have screened at festivals internationally including: Atlanta Underground, Cucalorus, Docutah, Indie Grits, Sidewalk Film Festival, St. John's International Women's Film Festival, and more. Her short narrative film, Baby Oil, was nominated for Best Acting and Best Writing at the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival. Her feature documentary, It's A Girl Thing: Tween Queens and The Commodification of Girlhood, was awarded Best Social Documentary at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival. She is a recipient of the prestigious North Carolina Arts Council's Fellowship award, the founder/Executive Director of the Visions Film Festival & Conference, and an Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.