Shawn Holmes is a multifaceted American filmmaker born DeShawn Holmes on September 25, 1986, in Wheeling, West Virginia. He is a director, screenwriter, and producer who has made a name for himself in the film industry.
As a young boy, Holmes grew up in Martins Ferry, Ohio, after his birth to a single mother at the age of sixteen. He attended The Linsly School in Wheeling, West Virginia, before briefly attending Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he was mentored by the renowned actor and director Barry Primus.
Holmes' directorial debut was the prize-winning science-fiction film Memory Lane, which he wrote, directed, produced, and edited. The film premiered at the Sci-Fi-London film festival in London, England, on May 6, 2012, and was made on a budget of less than three hundred dollars.
Memory Lane was inspired by Holmes' friend Michael Guy Allen, who returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and the film was shot in Martins Ferry, Ohio, and Wheeling, West Virginia. The film was distributed in North America by Wild Eye Releasing and worldwide by Monster Pictures.
In 2017, Holmes began working as an editor for acclaimed actress Tasha Smith and producer Lee Daniels. In April 2018, he appeared on WTRF-TV to announce a fundraiser to begin pre-production on his second feature film, a crime thriller called The Knife Salesman, for which the screenplay had been honored in 2014 as a finalist in the Script Pipeline 5th Great Movie Idea Contest.
