Marielle Woods is an award-winning, queer-identifying filmmaker who thrives in the high-stakes world of action storytelling. She likes to push emotional buttons and visual boundaries, telling stories that make audiences think — with a few explosions and car chases along the way. After receiving her BA in Visual Studies from Harvard in 2008, Woods moved west and has been working as an LA-based director and producer ever since. She got her start in docudrama television, crafting shows for networks including Discovery, History, A&E, and Animal Planet. She cut her teeth filming gunfights, avalanches, and animal attacks, traveling around the globe in pursuit of good stories. Now, she lives every week like it’s Shark Week. Determined to move into the scripted world, Woods cold-called and warm-emailed her way to observing on Fast & Furious 6 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Shortly thereafter, she transitioned a similar shadowing opportunity into a hired position assisting the stunt team on John Wick: Chapter Two. She has since moved up to become a Stunt Department Coordinator, and has spent much of the last six years working with some of the best Stunt Coordinators and Second Unit Directors in the business on projects including Baby Driver, Bright, and Westworld. Woods’ short films have toured the festival circuit with acceptances including LA Shorts Fest, Montreal World Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, Cinequest, Rhode Island Flickers, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and NBCU Short Cuts. She flipped a car in the jungles of Puerto Rico for her short, Mi Corazon, and recreated war-torn Iraq on a soundstage in Culver City for her 2018 film, Do No Harm. Most recently, Woods turned sign-spinning into a martial art for her AFI DWW film, Spin. In addition to being accepted to the 2019 class of the AFI Directing Workshop for Women, Woods is a member of the 2019 Universal Directors Initiative and a fellow in the 2020 HBOAccess Directing Fellowship. She also recently shadowed on Freeform’s Siren and The CW’s, where she observed several directors across prep and production. Currently, Woods is in development on a number of original action projects spanning a range of genres and tones. She is working to create “non-binary” filmmaking – blending the emotional resonance that some might deem “feminine” with the societally assigned “masculinity” of the action genre.