Samantha Aldana is an award-winning Belizean-American director/writer based in Los Angeles. She is inspired by stories that use genre elements to explore the human condition and is heavily influenced by the storytelling traditions of her multicultural upbringing in South Mississippi and the Caribbean.

 

Her debut feature film, SHAPELESS, was selected as a 2020 fellow of The Gotham Narrative Lab and premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. The film was distributed by XYZ Films. Samantha directed ANGELS, an episode of Season 3, Bite Size Halloween, produced by 20th Digital. ANGELS premiere at Overlook and is currently streaming on Hulu and Shudder. The film recently won the Bronze Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Dark Bridges Film Festival.

 

Samantha received the Belize Film Commissioner's Emerging Storyteller Feature Film Award for her in-development dark-fantasy feature LITTLE LYING WILD. This film was also selected to participate in the Tribeca Film Institute Network, Breaking Through the Lens, and the Emerging Voices Program.

 

Samantha is currently a semi-finalist for the Warner Brothers Directors Access Program and an alum of the NBC Female Forward TV Director Program. 

 

Her short film, THE MELANCHOLY MAN, screened at Comic-Con, premiered as a top pick on The Film Shortage and was awarded Best Narrative Film in the Audience Awards Women's Film Challenge. She received the Best Director Award for her short film THESE WILD THINGS at the NYC Damn! Film Series, and the Jury Award for Best LA Short Film at the New Orleans Film Festival. Her short SI was featured on PBS and was awarded Best Short Film and Best Cinematography at the International KIDS FIRST! Film Festival. Her film PORCELAIN won the Jury Award at the Boston Independent Film Festival. 

 

Samantha holds a BA in Film Directing from Columbia College Chicago and is a member of Film Fatales, Free the Work, WIFT and NALIP.