Shaina Feinberg

Faculty, MFA in Film (director)

Two sisters in a bathroom debate their different approaches to the patriarchy. (2020)

Faculty, MFA in Film (writer-director)

Completely distraught after the sudden loss of her dad, filmmaker Shaina Feinberg will do anything she can to connect to him again. She catalogues her dad's belongings—a calculator, a clock, a basket of lozenges. She forces her friends to wear his clothes and mimic his gestures. She takes a stab at making a webseries he'd always wanted to make—the name of which is "Senior Escort Service." And she combs through his journal, where she finds out about a process of dealing with grief that was invented by the grandchildren of Nazis. The process is called Familienaufstellung, which means Family Constellation, and it requires people to reenact their traumas as a means of making peace with it. This inspires Shaina to gather a group of women in a loft where they play out her trauma for her. Finally, in the hopes of singing her dad one last song, Shaina goes on a journey to his grave. On the journey, she recollects her dad's love of acronyms, singing and "South Park," ultimately learning to live with his absence. (2019)

Cinequest San Jose Film Festival 2019: Winner, Visionary Leader Award

Faculty, MFA in Film (cowriter-codirector)

Two weeks before the birth of her first child, New Yorker Shaina Feinberg recounts her reluctant journey to motherhood in a video letter to her son. Clearly influenced by old Woody Allen films, her letter becomes a series of vignettes that include her newly sober husband, her goofy Upper West Side parents, an adorable Shih-tzu, a neurotic shrink, and her own views on daytime television. (2016)