Welcome to the Summer FST 334: 6x1 class!  As you've figured out already, I'm the professor for this course.  My BFA is in Art - Photography, and I received my MFA in Film Production from the University of Iowa. My hometown is Austin, TX.  "Keep Austin Weird" is the actual city motto and I embrace it fully.

To give you a bit more about me as a person, not just your teacher, here are few things about me:




1) I LOVE FILM...like real FILM...like Super 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm.  Shooting it, editing it, watching it.  Love, Love, Love.

2) I have the super coolest kid in the world...Kai.  You'll hear about him sometimes.  Learn to humor me with smiles and nods about his greatness.

3) I love living near the beach.  How I managed to live landlocked for 20 years I do not know.  :)

4) I'm a non-zealous Whedonite...though I could really have done without Angel.

5) My humor is dark and dry...deal with it.

To offer more about my professional work, I've included my official bio below.

~Shannon

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Shannon Silva is North Carolina based filmmaker whose principal areas of interest include issues of gender, poverty, celebrity culture/fandom, and community building creative initiatives.  Her short and feature length films have screened at the Dallas Video Festival, Atlanta Underground, Athens International, Humboldt Film Festival, FLEX, Docutah, LA Femme, Central Florida Film Festival, St. John's International Women's Film Festival and more.  In 2012, her feature length 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 has worked as Screenplay Competition Director for the Austin Film Festival, Marketing Director for Austin Cinemaker Cooperative, and was a founding member of the Iowa City Microcinema.  She is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, the Faculty Supervisor for the Visions Film Festival and Conference, and, as a lover of all things related to film festivals, she has participated in screening committees for the Ann Arbor Film Festival, SXSW, Iowa City Documentary Festival, Cinematexas, and the Cucalorus Film Festival. She is also a co-founder of the Wilmington Female Filmmakers' Collective.

This summer she is directing a short narrative film, Baby Oil. The film, set in 1976, focuses on two sisters who find themselves stuck out in the country during a dangerous storm.

Her feature length script, Red, is in development and was awarded a $3000 Research Grant. The experimental, narrative is set in late 1930's, Lumberton, NC and focuses on a share-cropping family and the new, exciting sport softball.