Biography
Maria Douza is a Greek film director and screenwriter. She studied Byzantine History and Medieval Greek Literature before joining the National Film and Television School of England to study film direction. Since her graduation from the NFTS, she has been living and working in Athens, Greece. Her earlier work includes many short and medium length films, a few documentaries and over hundred commercials and social awareness spots about Streetlight Kids, Domestic Violence and Energy Saving.
The last ten years, Maria has been focusing on feature films and documentaries. Her first feature "The Tree and the Swing'' (2013), a Greek-Serbian co production starring Mirto Alikaki and Mirjana Karanovic, represented Greece in many European Union Film Festivals (Chicago,Toronto, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, India etc.) and enjoyed both festival and theater distribution worldwide. "The Tree and the Swing" aka "A Place Called Home" was bought by Netflix in 2022.
Maria has also made three documentaries. "Thission Cinema of Athens" (2017, 52') for French Television Cine+, distributed worldwide by Prime Entertainment, "Pantelis Kaliotsos - In the Writer's Workshop" (2018, 63') shown on Cosmote TV, "Liberation" (2020, 15') about Wild_Life organization ANIMA. In March 2020, she designed the 54 Episodes History Series "Small Lessons for a Big World", for Hellenic Parliament TV Channel, of which she directed 22 episodes.
During this period, she also wrote a stage-play "Flight Delay", and shot her second feature film "Listen" (2022, 107'), which participated as work in progress at Cannes Marche du Film 2021. "Listen", a Greek-Bulgarian co-production with Efthalia Papacosta, Dimitris Kitsos, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Nikos Koukas and Yoana Bukovska Davidova, has been shown in major international festivals (Tallinn Black Nights, Cairo IFF, Sofia IFF, Dhaka IFF, Galway Film Fleadh, Thessaloniki IFF, WoW festival and more) and has won Best Feature Award at the Dhaka IFF, Orpheus Best Feature and Best Performance Award for Efthalia Papacosta, at LAGFF (Los Angeles). The film will participate in Taoba International Youth Film Festival, Georgia, and will represent Greece at the European Union Film Festival Toronto and European Union Film Festival India. Maria is working on the 24 episode history series "Lasting Through Time", with Oliwia Tado-Twardovska and Maria Efthimiou , while developing the script for her next film "End Point".
