Emily Sheskin

Emily Sheskin is an award-winning film and commercial director who specializes in nonfiction — telling stories full of optimism and resilience, without glossing over life’s challenges. She takes real pride in seeing her short films featured by The New York Times, National Geographic, and The Atlantic (and, every so often, pirated on TikTok — though she’d prefer the credit).

As a commercial director, she works closely with clients to tell meaningful stories that resonate with audiences of all ages. There is nothing she loves more than drawing out people’s authentic reactions — something you can feel across her work for Disney and Niantic — and crafting narratives around people you want to root for, even when the subject is hard.

Her first feature film, JessZilla, premiered in 2023 at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and went on to play festivals around the world — IDFA, DOC NYC, and Hot Springs among them — winning awards at Slamdance, the Fargo Film Festival, the Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival, and the Atlanta Film Festival. It was later selected for the 2025 American Film Showcase, the U.S. State Department’s flagship cultural-exchange program.

Emily is currently deep in the world of speed puzzling with her short film Livestreams with GrandmaPuzzles. Though she has found her niche in nonfiction, she still loves working with actors, both commercially and independently. She holds a BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a member of New York Women in Film & Television, Film Fatales, and DocShop. She is one half of the duo behind Chicken Wing Pictures.