Elena was born in New York City and grew up
in Greenwich Connecticut. Her first
inspiration for movie-making came from
watching her dad make home movies on
his Super 8 camera. She eventually got a
camcorder of her own and at Yale College
started making movies with friends. After
graduating, she was awarded an Emerging
Artist Fellowship at Yale’s Digital Media
Center for the Arts. There, she and Elihu
Rubin started the documentary
collaborative American Beat, focusing on
films about the changing urban landscape.
Elena studied film theory as a graduate
student at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she
wrote a dissertation on the cinematic
philosophies of André Bazin, Roland
Barthes and Gilles Deleuze. She also
made a short film about Kmart which
reminded her that she needed to get
back to filmmaking. After moving to
San Francisco in 2011, Elena wrote and
directed the short film Lit, which screened
at Outfest, Frameline and other festivals
around the country. In 2018, Elena was
awarded a SFFILM FilmHouse Residency
for her feature film script Outerlands,
which is currently in development. She has
taught film history & production at
College of San Mateo, Stanford, UNC-
Chapel Hill and Duke, as well as
filmmaking for kids at Harvey Milk
Center for the Arts. She lives in Massachusetts
with her wife Jess and their animal-children
Rainbow & Ziji.
