Maria Douza Bio

Since her graduation from the National Film & TV School, UK, Maria has been living and working in Athens. Her earlier work includes many short and medium length films, commercials, documentaries and social awareness spots. 

In 2013, she wrote and directed her first feature THE TREE AND THE SWING, a Greek-Serbian co-production starring Mirjana Karanovic and Myrto Alikaki. The film represented Greece in many European Union Film Festivals and enjoyed both festival and theatre distribution worldwide. Recently THE TREE AND THE SWING (aka A PLACE CALLED HOME) was bought by NETFLIX. 

After that, Maria made three documentaries, THISSION CINEMA OF ATHENS (2017, 52’) for French Canal+ series MYTHICAL CINEMAS (Greek French co-production) shown all over the world; IN THE WRITER’S WORKSHOP (2018, 63’) a documentary comprising a series of interviews with writer Pantelis Kaliotsos on writing and the ethics of creativity; LIBERATION (2020, 15’) a short documentary on wildlife preservation organisation ANIMA.

Between 2020 - 2023 she created (and directed in collaboration with Oliwia Twardovska) the two extremely popular TV history series, SMALL LESSONS FOR A BIG WORLD (54 episodes), and LASTING THROUGH TIME (24 episodes), with professor Maria Efthimiou, for the Hellenic Parliament TV channel & ERT.

In 2021, she shot her second feature film LISTEN (2022, 108'), a Greek Bulgarian co production featuring Efthalia Papacosta, Dimitris Kitsos and Yiorgos Pyrpassopoulos, which participated as work in progress at the Cannes Marche du Film that year.  Shown in major international festivals (Tallinn Black Nights, Cairo IFF, Sofia IFF, Thessaloniki IFF, Galway Film Fleadh, WoW festival and more) LISTEN won BEST FEATURE AWARD at the Dhaka IFF, and the ORPHEUS BEST FEATURE and BEST PERFORMANCE AWARD for Efthalia Papacosta, at LAGFF (Los Angeles) and represented Greece at the European Union Film Festivals of Canada and India. The film is represented by Screenbound International Pictures UK. It has been sold to Latin America and will be dubbed in Spanish and Portuguese.

Currently, Maria is working on her next feature film END POINT, an anti-war fantasy already presented to Sofia Meetings and Galway Marketplace.