Parity Pipeline

Maria Millan is a Venezuelan filmmaker working in Caracas and London. She is an alumna of The Latino Filmmakers’ Fellowship at Sundance Film Festival 2025, where she participated with her screenplay ‘The Hollow Women’. She is now shadowing Series Producer Mat Chaplin and Director Sean James Grant in the Apple TV series Hijack, produced by 60-Forty Films in the UK.

Millan was also an alumna of the Hessen Lab within the B3 Biennale in Frankfurt, Germany, in October 2022 with the same screenplay, now a semi-finalist of the Stowe Lab Screenwriting Fellowship in the US. She was also part of 'Talent Led: Next Gen' by the Independent Film Trust (now Story Compound) in London for the 2022/2023 term. 

Her academic foundation includes a BA Honours in Communications and Media, specialising in Audio-Visual Arts from the Catholic University Andres Bello in Caracas, Venezuela. Furthering her skills, she studied Directing Actors and Video Editing Skills at the renowned International Film School in San Antonio de Los Baños, Cuba (EICTV). 

Maria's journey in film and TV commenced in the art department, crafting sets for TV ads in Caracas. Relocating to London in 2011, she transitioned into photography, capturing stills for esteemed publications such as Vogue Italia, Cosmopolitan, Fruk Magazine, and more. She demonstrated her diverse capabilities and led the Production Design for Christopher Granier-Deferre's film "Chop Chop" (2016). 

Her directorial prowess shone in the film ‘The Refuge’ featuring actresses Lujza Richter Hugo and Demi Hannah Scott. The film earned a place in the official selection of The Women’s Film Festival in Seattle and L’Etrange Film Festival in Paris, with Maria receiving an exclusive screening and Q&A at David Lynch's Private Members Club: Silencio. 'The Refuge’ is now on Amazon. 

In October 2023, Maria premiered her 23-minute documentary ‘Trans_CCS' at the 33rd Tampa Bay International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. The documentary found recognition in various international film festivals, including GRRL HAUS cinema, BANGIFF in Thailand, The Lonely Seal Film Festival in Boston, Seattle Latino, Tokyo Shorts International and it was part of ’Cine Social, La Imagen del Sur' in Spain the past November 2024. 

Adding another milestone to her career, Maria recently completed her first feature-length documentary Family Pride, Queer Aside, which premiered in September 2024 at the 9th annual Feminist Border Arts Film Festival in the US, where it won both the Jury and Audience Awards simultaneously.

’Family Pride, Queer Aside’ also screened at the Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival alongside ‘Trans_CCS’ which screened in their short section. In Europe, the documentary premiered at the Queer Film Festival Utrecht in The Netherlands also in September 2024.

The film has attracted significant attention from researchers, educators, and sociologists due to its anthropological and societal relevance. It was included in the research for the Queer Studies Department at the University of Boston, received a private educational screening at Lakeside School in Seattle, and now Maria Millan has been invited by the head of the Sociology, Culture, and Religion department at the University of Bayreuth in Germany to showcase the film and lead a forum about Identity and Queer families. 

Maria Millan serves as an inspiring example of resilience and perseverance, using her work to draw attention to the role of women and the LGBTQ+ community within society.