Shira-Lee Shalit

Shira-Lee Shalit is an award-winning director, writer, and filmmaker. She is the head of the Directing Actors division at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program. Her comedy The Oh Gees, won Best Comedy at the Paris Short Film Festival and Piermont Film Festival, earned an Award of Excellence for Direction and Ensemble at Best Shorts, and screened at the LA Comedy Film Festival and Cannes Shorts.

Chosen by Steven Spielberg as one of 18 finalists (from over 12,000 directors) for Fox/DreamWorks’ On the Lot, Shalit emerged as a director of bold comedic storytelling. Her feature debut A-List, starring Academy Award nominee Sally Kirkland, won the Audience Award at the Milan International Film Festival and the Gold Remi for Best Comedy at WorldFest Houston. Her short films Open Air and Full Cycle screened internationally, with Full Cycle named a Regional Finalist in the Student Academy Awards, and Open Air chosen at over 50 festivals, winning multiple Best Short Film awards.

Equally at home on stage and screen, her theatrical directing has been seen at LAByrinth Theatre Company, Cherry Lane Theatre, Rattlestick, The Actors Studio, the NY International Fringe Festival, EST and La MaMa, among others.

A graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Columbia’s Grad Film Division, Shalit is on faculty at Columbia, NYU, and the Killer Films/Stony Brook Graduate Film Program. Shira-Lee is a Presidential Scholar of the Arts and National Arts Award recipient, a member of NYWIFT and the Actors Studio Director Unit. She is currently writing a feature comedy that she will direct.