Samantha Lavin

DGA Director, Assistant Director and Writer who has worked on an array of film and television projects including The Mayor, Criminal Minds, CSI NY, Scrubs and Law and Order-SVU as an Assistant Director. Her film "In Memory of Me" screened at over 40 festivals worldwide, winning awards including Best Performance, Best Female Director, Best Short and Panavision's New Filmmaker Grant. Samantha created a hybrid scripted/reality show called "Out of the Frying Pan" which was optioned by NBC/Comcast who then hired her to direct the presentation pilot. Samantha won a national competition for a PSA she wrote and directed on Marriage Equality during the height of the Proposition 8 battle. It was shown on NBC L.A. and was a featured video on Funny or Die. Her writing, which includes several feature film and television scripts, has won recognition at competitions including Outfest, Moondance, Scriptapalooza and American Accolades. She was also a writer on the TV show "Cinematherapy" and has produced international promos for E! Entertainment and the Style Networks. Samantha graduated from Purchase College with a degree in Theater. She founded the first gay and lesbian theater company in Westchester, NY and went on to direct and perform in its improvisational comedy group and main stage productions. She has written and directed several other films, Pilots, Commercials, Promos and Music Videos.

Currently, Samantha is directing the play "Key Change" about women in prison, which opens at the Secret Rose Theater on April 13th and runs three weekends. She's also in pre-production on her narrative, feature film "7 on 10" about a former teacher and basketball player who is incarcerated for killing a woman in an alcoholic blackout. The film received full, private equity funding solely based on the trailer she directed about the plight of incarcerated women and how the film would present this powerful story in order help so many impacted by mass incarceration.

Samantha serves on the Lesbian and Gay Advisory board for the City of West Hollywood as well as Women for Sobriety Center Inc., an organization serving women and women with children who are formerly incarcerated, homeless or seeking a new life by offering them housing and a safe place to begin again.