Laura Neri
Half Greek, half Italian filmmaker Laura Neri was born in Belgium, where she graduated in film & screenwriting under the mentorship of Palme d’Or winner Luc Dardenne. She has an MFA in Film Directing from USC, where she received a full scholarship and was the recipient of a grant by the AMPAS.
Neri wrote and directed several award-winning short films which screened at festivals worldwide, including her short A KISS ON THE NOSE, which screened at more than 50 festivals and received multiple awards (including the Jimmy Stewart and Vision awards at the Heartland Film Festival) and was bought for distribution by Rete4, SiTV, and United Airlines. Her first feature KILL THE HABIT premiered at Cinequest, got a “Best Feature Director” award at L.A. Femme film festival & is currently available to watch on Amazon Prime. Her short FUGUE was selected among hundreds to receive a production grant from Greek public television and won Best Short Fiction at SEEfest L.A. 2019. Her short IF YOU PLEASE began its festival run at the 44th CIFF & is distributed on Filmfestivalflix and was nominated for 4 Maverick Awards. Her short YAYA won Best Editing at the Dubai Film Festival, and her latest short ANNIE (2026) is a quarter-finalist for the Oxford Film Festival, an award-winner from the New York Film Awards and a nominee for Best Drama at the Reale Film Festival.
Several of her screenplays have participated in prestigious screenwriting workshops (eQuinoxe Europe, MFI Script 2 Film). THE HIDDEN WAR was selected for the Stowe Story Lab, was a quarter-finalist for the PAGE awards 2019 and is an official selection for the Nostos Screenwriting Retreat (2027). KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE got 2nd place at the RAINE filmmaker awards 2019.
She splits her time between Brussels, Athens and Los Angeles, has two passports and fluently speaks six languages.
