Maria Hatzakou

Director

BIOGRAPHIE

Maria Hatzakou is a film writer/director, producer, based in Athens, Greece. She holds a BA in Film and Video (London College of Printing) and joined the film industry by working extensively as a film programmer for the Athens International Film Festival (2000-2004), and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival(2005-2008). In 2007, she started working as a producer at Haos Film — a pioneering filmmaker-run production and post-production studio based in Athens. Maria has collaborated with director Athina Rachel Tsangari on a number of projects. “Attenberg”, her first producer credit, premièred in main competition at the Venice Film Festival. In 2012, she produced Tsangari’s “The Capsule”, that premièred at dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, and went on to screen in competition at the Locarno, Toronto and Sundance Film festivals. In 2013, she produced “24 Frames Per Century”, Tsangari’s sci-fi short for the Venice Film Festival’s commemorative anniversary project “Venezia 70 — Future Reloaded”. Their latest feature production, “Chevalier” won Best Film at the BFI London Film Festival. In addition to her work with Tsangari, she has collaborated with a number of directors and artists. She co-produced Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Alps”, which premièred in main competition at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, as well as produced “Digger”(Georgis Grigorakis) which opened at Berlinale 2020. In 2011, she was selected for the European Film Promotion’s “Producers on the Move” forum as part of the Cannes Film Festival. She is also a Sundace Institute Alumna. In 2021 she founded her own production company MERRICAT. Its credits include Maria’s first foray into writing and directing with the short film AMYGDALA. The film continues its successful run around the world with selection. Maria is currently in post-production with her second short film SEVEN HERTZ as well as in development with STARFLYER, her third short film financed by the National Broadcasting Television of Greece (ERT). Merricat is the main producer of the short film Honeymoon (written and directed by Alkis Papastahopoulos), which won the In Kind Mastering Award at the ESP 2023 forum (WIP section-2023). She is also currently writing her first feature film.

FILMOGRAPHIE