Ellena Eshraghi is a New York based writer, actor, and filmmaker. A graduate of NYU Tisch with degrees in Drama and Dramatic Writing, Ellena served as the director of the NYU comedy group, Hammerkatz. She made her stage debut off-broadway with Ars Nova’s HOUND DOG, and later made her screen debut in Paramount’s Mean Girls (2024). Ellena has directed a series of music videos, wrote and produced an original dramedy pilot, and continues to write and direct her own narrative work. Her films have screened at venues across New York City. Recently her no-budget film, ‘Oh! A Phantom All My Life,’ premiered at Nighthawk Cinema in Brooklyn. She is in preproduction for her short film, My Least Favorite Shape and has plans to shoot a feature in 2027.

My films explore cultural disconnect, the bizarre nature of mental illness, and failure. Being born in the new millennium, my work inherently references the parasitic changes to day-to-day life in the face of the internet. With my intersectionality as an Iranian-American woman and the child of immigrants, I investigate the different facets of society that fracture our identity and leave us feeling unanswered and alone. In a world that constantly demands us to define who we are, which pieces do we pick up and what do we leave on the floor?

I hope to speak to what is unconscious and introduce audiences to new realities.