Biografia
Maria Douza is a Greek film director and screenwriter. She initially studied Byzantine History and Medieval Greek Literature before attending the National Film and Television School in England to pursue film direction. Since graduating from NFTS, she has been based in Athens, Greece, where she has worked on numerous short and medium-length films, several documentaries, and over a hundred commercials and social awareness campaigns addressing issues such as Streetlight Kids, Domestic Violence, and Energy Conservation.
Over the past decade, Maria has concentrated on feature films and documentaries. Her debut feature, "The Tree and the Swing" (2013), a Greek-Serbian co-production starring Mirto Alikaki and Mirjana Karanovic, represented Greece at numerous European Union Film Festivals, including those in Chicago, Toronto, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and India. The film enjoyed both festival acclaim and worldwide theatrical distribution. Known also as "A Place Called Home," it was acquired by Netflix in 2022.
Maria has also directed three documentaries: "Thission Cinema of Athens" (2017, 52'), produced for French television channel Cine+ and distributed globally by Prime Entertainment; "Pantelis Kaliotsos - In the Writer's Workshop" (2018, 63'), which aired on Cosmote TV; and "Liberation" (2020, 15'), focusing on the Wild_Life organization ANIMA. In March 2020, she created the 54-episode history series "Small Lessons for a Big World" for the Hellenic Parliament TV Channel, directing 22 episodes.
During this time, Maria also wrote the stage play "Flight Delay" and completed her second feature film, "Listen" (2022, 107'), which was presented as a work in progress at Cannes Marché du Film 2021. "Listen," a Greek-Bulgarian co-production featuring Efthalia Papacosta, Dimitris Kitsos, Yorgos Pirpassopoulos, Nikos Koukas, and Yoana Bukovska Davidova, has screened at major international festivals such as Tallinn Black Nights, Cairo IFF, Sofia IFF, Dhaka IFF, Galway Film Fleadh, Thessaloniki IFF, and WoW festival. It won Best Feature at Dhaka IFF, as well as the Orpheus Best Feature and Best Performance Award for Efthalia Papacosta at LAGFF (Los Angeles). The film is scheduled to participate in the Taoba International Youth Film Festival in Georgia and will represent Greece at the European Union Film Festivals in Toronto and India. Currently, Maria is working on the 24-episode history series "Lasting Through Time" alongside Oliwia Tado-Twardovska and Maria Efthimiou, while developing the script for her next film, "End Point.
