Missy’s Biography

Missy Hernandez is an award-winning independent filmmaker and screenwriter whose scripts center Latiné experiences in the US and Caribbean. Her work is intersectional, feminist, often political, and unapologetically fantastical as fits the genre or her whims. Missy’s feature script, I Don’t Dream in Spanish Anymore, won Best Horror Feature at the 2025 Nashville Film Festival Screenplay Competition, Best Feature Screenplay at the 2024 Nantucket Film Festival’s Tony Cox Screenplay Competition, and the 2024 Athena List. Her short film script, Lejos de Aquí, was a finalist for the 2025 Shore Scripts Short Film Fund and won the Mentorship Prize for the 2025 Outstanding Screenplay Shorts Competition. Missy’s short film, Madrina (2025), premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival and is currently on the festival circuit. Missy was a Writer and Co-Producer of American Thief (2020), the co-writer and producer of The Last Election and Other Love Stories (2021), and the Writer’s Assistant and Associate Producer for season one of the HBO/A24 series Random Acts of Flyness (2018). Missy graduated from Columbia University in New York with a BA in Cinema Studies and an MFA in Screenwriting. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Film and Television at Columbia College Chicago. Her previous projects have received support from the Illinois Arts Council, Cine Qua Non Labs, NALIP Media Market, the Chicago International Film Festival’s CIX: Lab, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Jerome Foundation, Stowe Story Labs, and IFP/The Gotham.