Dena Hysell-Cornejo

Dena Hysell-Cornejo is restlessly creative, working across mediums depending on the direction the story takes her as a writer, director, photographer, producer, and multimedia artist. Her work has been recognized with top honors at multiple festivals (Toronto, Seattle, Indiana, NYFF), and acquired by major distributors. After graduating from Stanford University, she has produced, directed and written for Eli Roth’s Crypt TV, Legacy Entertainment Partners, Drive Media and various other companies. She was featured in the 2017 Buzzfeed article on female directors talking about gender and representation in Hollywood ()

Her narrative directing debut feature, Ascent To Hell, was released by Gravitas Ventures in April of 2017 to unanimously good reviews in the press, getting 4 out of 5 stars from First Comic News, and leading Spoiler Free Movie Sleuth to comment “…Hysell takes the predictable into unexpected territory, the undeniable hallmark of this scrappy, architectural haunting” Her third narrative feature, Algorithm:Bliss is being released through Green Apple Entertainment in Q2 2020.

Dena is currently directing and writing a documentary feature for Without Exception Films focused on gender based violence in Rwanda and Uganda. They are partnered with three NGOs working to change the culture around female genital violence and acid attacks in these areas.

In 2019/2020, Dena was one of the inaugural “Writer’s Room 50/50” participants, a program designed to actively train and promote female and POC writers in the television space.

When not on set, she spends her time traveling the world, shooting photographs in some of the globe’s most remote locations & cultures. In 2019, she shot in 7 countries for multiple publications as well as commissions for private collectors.