Samantha Farinella is a veteran NYC filmmaker, now based in Honolulu, and the founder of One Angry Woman Productions. Her films have aired on PBS, Ovid, Kanopy, screened at over a hundred festivals worldwide, and earned more than twenty-five awards.
Her feature documentary Hunting in Wartime premiered nationally on PBS and received top honors including the Big Sky Award at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and the Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking Award at the Inwood Film Festival. The film has screened internationally at venues such as the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, The National Archives, the Cambodian International Film Festival, the American Indian Film Festival, and the Hanoi Cinematheque.
Farinella’s first feature documentary, Left Lane, won eight awards including honors in New Zealand, Paris and New York. It received official selection in over fifty national and international festivals including: San Francisco's Frameline, Out in Africa (South Africa's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival), Galway Film Fleadh, Barcelona's Kosmopolis and opening night at Boston's LGBTQ+ Wicked Queer Film Festival.
Her short film Without a Scratch has played at over fifteen festivals, earning Best Experimental awards from both the Big Muddy Film Festival and the Columbus International Film and Animation Festival.
Beyond independent filmmaking, Farinella has extensive experience in television and advertising, having worked with Viacom, The History Channel, Animal Planet, PBS, and Hogarth Worldwide. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Media at the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu.