A former college media professor, Shammi holds a master’s of fine arts from UCLA. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, she immigrated to the U.S. at age eight, without a word of English but eyes that took in everything, beginning a lifelong relationship with images, the “immigrant’s language.” She discovered filmmaking during the Gulf War when she found herself forced to face questions that were begging for answers. She has written and directed several films, including East, Anniversary, and Animal Stories, which have screened at international film festivals. Via films that portray the strange and sometimes even comedic experience of being an immigrant in the U.S., Shammi’s work demonstrates that while images speak a thousand words, 24 frames of them per second speak even more. While teaching media production in Dubai, she was welcomed into a world of local culture by her Emirati students. She produced the documentary Finding Mr. & Mrs. Right: Dubai Style and curated a photo exhibit entitled Privately, a progenitor of Gulfography. In this hyper-globalized world where communication is easy but connection difficult, information a keystroke away but the Truth out of reach, she cofounded Gulfography as way to speak to the immigrant in all of us that floats virtually off the ground—rootless, reaching for a new language that connects us to each other and a home where we finally belong.

Shammi Samano is a filmmaker and lecturer of Film/Video and Photography in the Global Art Studies Program at the University of California, Merced. She received her B.A. in Women Studies from University of California, Santa Barbara and her M.F.A. in Film Production from University of California, Los Angles. While in Los Angeles, Samano directed several short films that were acquired for distribution and/or played numerous international festivals.  As an Iraqi immigrant to the U.S, her films have often been inspired by the Middle East region as well as the complicated tension and beauty of living between both cultures.  Her films have also delved into issues of sexuality as it relates to the Middle East and otherwise. Samano left LA for Dubai to teach media production at Dubai Women's College. In Dubai, she produced "Finding Mr. & Mrs Right: Dubai Style" an off-beat documentary about the trials and tribulations of young locals as they searched for their ideal match in a culture where merely dating is taboo. Timeout Dubai called it "one of the must-see films" of the Dubai International Film Festival. In Dubai, she also curated a successful photo exhibit at the Gallery of Light entitled Privately. The exhibit showcased the photography of young Emirati women and explored their creative negotiations of public and private spaces in the quest for self-expression, and even resistance. Since returning to the U.S., Samano has freelanced as a director and editor. She is currently directing a feature-length documentary focused on a controversial Arab intellectual and blogger. This film delves into some of the most hot-button issues of the Middle East as well as the intellectual’s relationship to resistance, social media, and censorship. In addition to teaching at UC Merced and in Dubai, Samano has has also taught in the UCLA Extension Entertainment Studies Program.