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 is distributed by XYZ Films. Most recently, Samantha directed a short film titled ANGELS for 20th Digital that is currently streaming on Hulu as a part of Bite Size Halloween. Samantha is the recipient of the Belize Film Commissioner’s Emerging Storyteller Feature Film Award for her in-development horror 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 an alum of the NBC/Universal Diversity TV Director Program and had the opportunity to shadow director Salli Richardson-Whitfield on an episode of SYFY's, THE MAGICIANS, as well as an episode of Marvel's AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. Samantha holds a BA in Film Directing from Columbia College Chicago and is a member of Film Fatales, Free the Work, WIFT and NALIP.