Shannon Silva is a multi-modal filmmaker living and working in Wilmington, NC.

She is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her films have screened at festivals internationally including: Atlanta Underground, London Short Film Festival, Melbourne Underground, Cucalorus, Docutah, Indie Grits, Sidewalk Film Festival, St. John's International Women's Film Festival, and more.

In 2013, 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.

In 2016, she was awarded the prestigious North Carolina Arts Council's Fellowship award to complete the narrative short, Baby Oil. While on its festival run, Baby Oil screened widely and was an award nominee at the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival for Best Writing and Best Actress.

In 2018, she was awarded a competitive Charles L. Cahill grant to complete the narrative short, Shoot the Duck. The film screened widely, including at the CMS International Film Festival in Lucknow, India.

In 2021, her experimental, animated, documentary, To Live and Die in the Meditations on Ferns, Survival, and Horizontal Gene Transfer, screened at festivals internationally and was named Best Environment and Climate Short Film at the Mannheim Arts and Film Festival.

Currently, she is in development on two feature, feminist, horror scripts, Keepsake and The Party. She is also in production on the short experimental, animation, No Words, which uses sound, light and color to reflect on the challenges of living with disability.

In addition to her film work and teaching, she is the founder and Executive Director of the Visions Film Festival & Conference.