Hilari is an award-winning writer/director/producer chosen by Steven Spielberg out of 12,000 filmmakers for the TV show “On the Lot” on FOX. Her first feature “See What I’m Saying” received the NYT Critics’ Pick and screened in 800 cities in 19 countries and is streaming on Amazon Prime and iTunes (and if you’re old-school, is available on Netflix DVD.) Hilari consulted for Amazon on “Sound of Metal,” winning Variety’s Social Impact Award.

She became fluent in sign language after touring with the National Theater of the Deaf which led to her passion of collaborating with Deaf actors.  She began as an actor in over 75 regional and Off-Broadway productions, three national tours and several sketch/improv companies.

Hilari was a board member of the Alliance of Women Directors, a participant in the PGA’s Power of Diversity and has consulted for Universal Studios, Walt Disney Imagineering, Google, Nike and Sprint.

She taught screenwriting for three months in China and was hired to write a feature film for a Deaf actor in India.

She is the founder of the Young Players Ensemble (YPE), an international program that creates original content with diverse casts. Past YPE theater productions in Northern Ireland, New York and Los Angeles included actors from Russia, Scotland and Nigeria with notable participants including Liz Feldman (“Dead to Me”) and Steven Parker (“Little Miss Sunshine.”) The program migrated to film/television with “Worldplay” narrated by Sharon Stone, the Chinese short film “Magic Fountain” and the TV pilot for her original teen drama “The Whatever Years.”

Hilari is a 2023 grant recipient from Creative Capital to create the original theater production Not Another Deaf Story with an ensemble of Deaf actors that began as part of the fall studio lab at REDCAT.