Elivia Shaw

Documentary Filmmaker, Editor and Producer

Elivia Shaw is the Frank Sinatra Assistant Professor of Communication at Santa Clara University and an award-winning filmmaker interested in what becomes visible when we look closely. Her work pairs intimate visual and sonic worlds with unconventional image-making to explore questions of care, environment, labor, and power through character-driven storytelling. Whether in medical clinics, agricultural landscapes, institutional spaces, or at home, her films ask us to examine our responsibility to one another and imagine new futures.

Elivia is currently directing The Invisible Valley, a feature documentary set in California’s Central Valley, with support from ITVS, SFFILM, the Redford Center, California Humanities, MountainFilm and the Berkeley Film Foundation.

Her short documentaries The Clinic, The Shift, Legacy Video, and Breathing Room have been distributed by The Atlantic and PBS and have screened at festivals including AFI FEST, AFI DOCS, DOC NYC, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Film Festival, receiving numerous awards and honors.

In addition to her directing work, Elivia has edited and produced award-winning non-fiction films including, Ricky Leaves (Latino Public Broadcasting, NYLFF), How to Have an American Baby (True/False, PBS’s POV), and Users (Sundance Directing Award). Her work has also included productions for The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and National Geographic.

She holds an MFA in Documentary Film from Stanford University and a BA from NYU Gallatin, where she studied Cinema and the Middle East. She taught film production at Stanford for eight years and has also taught filmmaking at the University of San Francisco and in high school film programs.

elivia.shaw@gmail.com