About
Photograph by Brittany Messuri
My name is Samantha deManbey, and I am freelance filmmaker that has worked in Rhode Island and Central Massachusetts. I strive to create work that is authentic, personal, and moves people to action. My ideal subjects are activists, artists, and people who can offer alternate ways of looking at the world and possibilities for the future. Most of my production experience has come from working independently. As a freelancer I have created promotional videos or documentaries for non-profits, artists, and theaters.
In 2021 I finished a short documentary, Every Moment, about my friend Sahar Ghavimi, a multi-talented artist who emigrated from Iran to the United States. My main focus was how her life as an artist changed since coming to the United States. She gave up a comfortable life and successful art gallery in Hamedan, Iran, and it has been challenging to start over in a new country. For two years I filmed Sahar as she worked on three major art projects—a marquetry cityscape of Boston Harbor, a mural for the city of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and a traditional Persian miniature painting.
Theater has been a large part of my life as well, and I have created short videos that emphasize the emotional power of live performance. From 2018 to 2021 I was part of the leadership team of a small theater company, The Forge Theater Lab, which was dedicated to developing and producing new plays. I created trailers, edited recorded performances, recorded interviews with playwrights, and made videos that were incorporated into a play I directed, Chasing the Ghost by Ashley Lauren Rogers.
From 2021 to 2023 I attended the Documentary Media MFA program at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. There I created a handful of short projects and a 22-minute thesis documentary, One World is Writing, about the life and work of the writer Shirley Jackson.
It is very important for me to engage in work that I find meaningful and that makes a difference in the community. In the near the future I hope to focus on creating short documentaries, but I am still open to working with artists and non-profit organizations to promote their work.
In 2021 I finished a short documentary, Every Moment, about my friend Sahar Ghavimi, a multi-talented artist who emigrated from Iran to the United States. My main focus was how her life as an artist changed since coming to the United States. She gave up a comfortable life and successful art gallery in Hamedan, Iran, and it has been challenging to start over in a new country. For two years I filmed Sahar as she worked on three major art projects—a marquetry cityscape of Boston Harbor, a mural for the city of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and a traditional Persian miniature painting.
Theater has been a large part of my life as well, and I have created short videos that emphasize the emotional power of live performance. From 2018 to 2021 I was part of the leadership team of a small theater company, The Forge Theater Lab, which was dedicated to developing and producing new plays. I created trailers, edited recorded performances, recorded interviews with playwrights, and made videos that were incorporated into a play I directed, Chasing the Ghost by Ashley Lauren Rogers.
From 2021 to 2023 I attended the Documentary Media MFA program at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. There I created a handful of short projects and a 22-minute thesis documentary, One World is Writing, about the life and work of the writer Shirley Jackson.
It is very important for me to engage in work that I find meaningful and that makes a difference in the community. In the near the future I hope to focus on creating short documentaries, but I am still open to working with artists and non-profit organizations to promote their work.