I’m Shaun Seneviratne, a Sri Lankan-American filmmaker and educator living in New York City. In my own work, I’m interested in exploring communication, subjectivity, and transnational concerns. In your work, I will execute your video needs from development to post-production. In all work, I seek to create films with integrity and shape a viewing experience that is both artful and emotionally resonant.

I didn’t go to film school. I studied journalism and marketing, wrote for the paper, and played in DIY rock bands. I nurtured my love of film through cinema studies. To me, cinema studies was a way of understanding film on a deeper level and–through a theoretical lens and philosophical framework–a way of understanding ourselves.

I made my first film in my early 20s. My girlfriend at the time went abroad for a year. I wanted to do something special for her birthday so I made a short film/music video featuring all her friends and family back home. It was a way of externalizing the personal, saying what couldn’t be said, connecting emotionally, and creating something beautiful within my means. This is the mode of expression I wanted to work in and how I wanted to work in it.

I enrolled in The New School and worked towards a masters in media studies, balancing both theory and practice. Since then, I’ve written, directed, and edited short films; produced videos for a range of freelance clients; and crewed on productions in a variety of positions. My work received the audience choice award at the Zero Film Festival and the prize for Artistic Practice at Mixed Messages 2011.

That being said, my favorite movie growing up was Problem Child 2. Let’s make art together!

View my resume/CV.