Filmmaker Maris Curran creates deeply humanistic, visually rich work spanning fiction and documentary that foregrounds empathy and resilience. Her work has screened at festivals around the world, including: Berlinale, TIFF, Sheffield Doc/Fest; international museums, including: MoMA, the National Gallery of Art, the Barbican, and the Legacy Museum, and on NYTimes Op-Docs and PBS’s Independent Lens.
Her debut feature, FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE, starring David Oyelowo, Dianne Wiest, and Rosie Perez, explores familial loss and what remains unspoken in grief. Her most recent award-winning feature documentary, JEANNETTE, follows a survivor of the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre and explores the afterlife of violence.
Maris holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, participated in the Whitney ISP, is a Fulbright and recent Guggenheim Fellow. She’s a professor at the Sidney Poitier New American Film School at Arizona State University. Raised in Philly, she now lives in Los Angeles with her partner and young sons where she is also a death doula. Maris is a Fellow of the inaugural cohort of the Michael D. Eisner Arts & Culture Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
