Samantha Aldana is a Belizean-American director and writer whose work is deeply influenced by the magical realism and folklore storytelling traditions of her multicultural upbringing in Mississippi and the Caribbean. She is drawn to genre-driven narratives that explore the human condition, centering characters and stories that have often gone unseen.

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Samantha’s debut feature film, SHAPELESS, was selected as a 2020 fellow of The Gotham Narrative Lab and premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival before being released theatrically by XYZ Films. The Guardian praised it as an "accomplished, visually impressive debut."

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Her feature, LITTLE LYING WILD, has earned widespread recognition, including the Belize Film Commissioner’s Emerging Storyteller Feature Film Award and the WomeninFan Pitch Award at the Sitges Film Festival. It was also a Breaking Through the Lens finalist, taking her to Cannes and TIFF, and has been developed through the Berlinale Talents, Tribeca Film Institute Network, Tribeca Writing in Unreal, NALIP Media Accelerator, and the Emerging Voices Program.

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Samantha recently directed the Hulu/Disney horror short ANGELS for Season 3 of Bite-Size Huluween, which won the Best Supernatural Horror Film at Fear Fest and the Audience Award at Dark Bridges Film Festival. She was selected for the Warner Brothers Directors Access program in 2023 and is an alum of NBC’s Female Forward program, where she shadowed Salli Richardson-Whitfield on Syfy’s THE MAGICIANS and Marvel's AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

Her previous films have garnered acclaim at festivals worldwide. THE MELANCHOLY MAN screened at Comic-Con, premiered on The Film Shortage, and won Best Narrative Film in the Audience Awards Women’s Film Challenge. THESE WILD THINGS earned her the Best Director Award at the NYC Damn! Film Series, while SI was featured on PBS and awarded Best Short Film and Best Cinematography at the International KIDS FIRST! Film Festival. PORCELAIN received the Jury Award at the Boston Film Festival.

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Samantha holds a BA in Film Directing from Columbia College Chicago and is a member of Film Fatales and NALIP.