BIO

Serena Schuler is an award-winning writer and director. She created the series MAKESHIFT SOCIETY, which premiered at Dances With Films, and was featured in Deadline and Forbes. Her work spotlights diverse, female-led stories through the lens of comedy. A graduate of Cornell and Columbia, her films have screened in festivals around the world, and won Audience Awards at the Washington Jewish Film Festival and the Women in Comedy Festival. Her series CAKE WALK is now streaming on the WhoHaha Network created by Elizabeth Banks.

She works in sustainable film production, to bring down the carbon footprint of filmmaking, and just wrapped the Amazon tentpole feature film THE MAN WITH THE BAG, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alan Ritchson, and Awkwafina.

She's passionate about gender inclusion behind the camera. She co-led Dinner with Dames, a dinner series which extends the network for women and gender non-binary individuals in film, with industry leaders such as Blye Faust (Oscar-winning producer of SPOTLIGHT).

Her first film, THE TEN PLAGUES screened at festivals all over the world including the Mexico International Jewish Film Festival, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, LA Scripted Comedy Festival, Bay Area Women in Film and Media Shorts Showcase, Scary Cow Film Festival (WINNER Best Film, Outstanding Directing, and Outstanding Writing), Women in Comedy Festival (WINNER Audience Award), Washington Jewish Film Festival (WINNER Audience Award), UK Jewish Film Festival, NJ International Film Festival, Hartford Jewish Film Festival, and the NY Comedy Shorts Film Festival. Her music video TOO MUCH LOVE was a finalist in the Rachel Bloom Comedy Short Challenge.

A staged reading of her play POWER POSE, a psychological thriller, was held at Berkeley Rep. For the stage, she is currently developing a series of surreal short plays on motherhood, and a farce about couples trapped together on vacation.

Serena uses her platform to inspire young girls and non-binary youth to pursue careers in the arts, in her work with the Noe Valley Girls Film Festival (as its inaugural keynote speaker), youth theater, and the Young Storytellers Foundation.