Shelley Davis is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Film Production at Portland State University in School of Film and a practicing documentary filmmaker and storyteller. Her research and stories focus on building connections between lost histories, the land, and our everyday lives. She recently received a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Degree in Documentary Production and Studies from the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton, Texas, and coinciding with her graduate studies, she has served as a Teaching Fellow and Instructor at UNT in the Media Arts Department for the past three years. Shelley’s background in teaching ranges from introductory and advanced film production, color grading, audio production, sound design and editing, and documentary production courses.
Along with her teaching experiences, Shelley is working on several documentary productions as a director, editor, and sound designer. Influenced by her background in narrative cinema and sound, she draws on her childhood experiences from Florida to tell stories about Jewish people, environmental racism, protecting wild spaces, the climate crisis, underrepresented communities of color across the United States, LGBTQIA+ voices, women’s healthcare, and storytelling through different art mediums. Presently, she is directing and editing her first feature documentary film called Saba and Savta (2024), a story about the everyday life of an elderly Jewish couple searching for their lost family history and preserving what culture they know before their memory disappears. Shelley has a written publication that was published in the Summer 2024 that describes the process of making and the research behind the film, called Saba and Savta (2024). She is also in the early stages of editing a short documentary film called Heart Horse (2024), that focuses on the meaningful relationships horses can have with their owners. Some of Shelley’s previous work has focused on the rural communities of Miami-Dade County, situated in South Florida, and Biscayne National Park presented through the intertwining of a multicultural society, and that of a biodiverse habitat, called Gatekeeper (2022), and women who are struggling with a devastating childbirth injury for years until, one day, discovering that they are not alone in their suffering sends them on a journey toward hope and healing, called Facing Fistula (2022).
Throughout her storytelling practice, Shelley uses sound, video, and film, drawing from influences of the cinema verité and direct cinema movements to tell stories rooted in activism, community, social justice, tikkun olam, and immersing audiences in sensorial experiences. Shelley’s work has screened internationally, from Israel to Italy, and nationally across the United States from Florida to Texas and beyond. Her teaching, storytelling, and documentary practice is rooted in telling stories that need to be told and empowering underrepresented voices in art and media to share their story.