Serena Ryen is an actress and filmmaker based in New York City, and Co-Founder of Schmeh Films. With her partner Ethan Itzkow, she wrote and starred in the short film CASHED (now streaming on Amazon Prime), which won awards for Best Actress, Audience Choice, Best Dramatic Short, Best Cinematography, and a Best Comedy Short nom during its festival run. Her directorial debut HIGH SCORE made its world premiere with the Chelsea Film Festival, where it received the Best Short Film Award (Le Petit Prix) and Best Actor in a Short for Ethan Itzkow (of Netflix's hit series YOU). The anti-racist, social horror film follows a burgeoning white supremacist as he descends into an abyss of online radicalization and extremist conspiracy theories. JADE, Schmeh Films' collaboration with Dirty Coffee Pictures starring Luke Tennie (Apple TV's SHRINKING), won Best Actor for Tennie at the 11th Edition of the Chelsea Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Drama Short and the Audience Award at the Burbank International Film Festival. As an actor, Serena has toured the world from Argentina to Taiwan and performed on treasured stages like the Tony Award-winning Cincinnati Playhouse and Carnegie Hall. She has acted opposite masters like Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, and Ron Rifkin, in television shows by Ryan Murphy, in musicals by Broadway's Douglas Lyons, and in multidisciplinary projects by Swoon (Caledonia Curry). She lives to explore the great kaleidoscope of humanity and to tell stories that make a difference in people's lives.