Shayna Connelly is a Chicago-based filmmaker whose work explores liminality and the boundaries between documentary, experimental and fiction filmmaking. Her recent collection of eight films called A Memory Palace of Ghosts connects the ways hauntings affect our daily lives in the form of traumatic events, mental illness, everyday routines, the search for truth and the aftermath of grief. Such hauntings culminate in a questioning of her identities as feminist, mother and artist.

She holds an MFA in screenwriting and directing from Columbia College Chicago and is an Associate Professor of Film and Television at DePaul University. Connelly is a process focused teacher applying techniques from directing to other areas of filmmaking including editing, writing and film production. She has developed classes such as Creative Methodologies in Film and Television, The Supernatural in Film and Psychotic Women in Horror Cinema. She is the faculty advisor for DePaul Film Fatales, an intersectional feminist student organization dedicated to increasing the number of films by, for and about women and gender non-conforming folks.

Work in progress: The Tensile Strength of Air (narrative short in post-production).