Maria Douza

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 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. Subsequently, she made the 52 min documentary "Thission Cinema of Athens" (2017) for French Television Cine+, and "Pantelis Kaliotsos - In the Writer's Workshop" (2018), "Liberation" (2020) a documentary on Wild_Life organization ANIMA. In March 2020, she designed and began directing the 54 hourly Episodes Series "Small Lessons for a Big World'", for Hellenic Parliament TV Channel, which continues until today. During this period she also wrote a stage-play and shot her second feature film "Winter with Valmira" on the island of Chios. The film, a Greek-Bulgarian co-production, is currently in post production and was selected to participate in the 'Work in Progress' program of the Cannes Film Festival 2021. From 2008 to 2010, Maria worked as film consultant on European Research project ANSWER developing a notation system for the film language (Director Notation). In 2010, she designed and founded www.europeanscripts.net, an internet platform for presentation and promotion of screenplays in Europe.