Film Writer/Director

Born in Michoacán, Mexico, Maria Victoria Ponce is a San Francisco Bay Area film writer/director who grew up in Richmond, California. She appreciates the complexity in the routine lives within poor and working-class neighborhoods; themes of sexuality and coming of age tend to recur in her work.

Ponce is a fellow at Cine Qua Non Lab, NALIP Latino Media Market, and Latino Screenwriting Project, and an artist resident at SFFILM FilmHouse. She was selected as one of five finalists for Tribeca/AT&T Untold Stories 2019. Her script Washing Elena is currently on the Black List’s inaugural Latinx List. Washing Elena was selected for Film Independent’s Fast Track, awarded the SFFILM Rainin Grant in development, and will participate in the 2021 WIF x Sundance Institute Financing Intensive. Ponce was awarded a grant from PBS's The Latino Experience for her coming-of-age short film Death & Deathability (A Period Piece), which will broadcast nationally on PBS.

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Ponce's short films have played at Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia, WIF Shorts Night, Urbanworld, Femme Frontera, San Diego Latino Film Festival, CineFestival San Antonio, Boston International Latino Film Festival, Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, HBO/New York International Latino Film Festival, and Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival. She directed and produced the documentary Engage Her, interviewing, among others, civil rights leaders Dolores Huerta, Aileen Hernandez, Barbara Lee, and Voto Latino founder María Teresa Kumar.

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