ASHLEY MARIA, DIRECTOR
When you were a kid, did you ever feel like the whole world received an instruction manual on life but you? Personally, I still feel like that awkward kid interpreting life from afar…with a curiosity that feeds my voice as a storyteller.
At first I tried to fight this part of me. As a kid, while my single mom encouraged me to dream big, my Oma (grandmother) taught me to embrace the “weird” and “dry sense of humor” in me. She owned her path, enjoyed telling stories that would leave me in shock, and made me giggle as she commented in what seemed to be very inappropriate German words 🙂
My Oma taught me to fully embrace the awkward side of me.
When I grew up I chose filmmaking as my vehicle of expression and stayed the course with being ‘awkward’ — and it paid off! My first student film won a Directors Guild of America award. When other winning films focused on intense topics, “Friday Night Fright” was an unconventional (aka awkward) comedy/horror à la Twilight Zone.
Being recognized so early in my career helped to solidify my choice, and I never looked back.
But looking to the future soon became a challenge.
After seeing female filmmakers winning the awards yet NOT getting jobs as directors (me included), I could feel me starting to doubt myself. A feeling of wanting to give up and chose a different career was creeping in. WHAT WAS HAPPENING? Where did Oma’s awkward know-her-own-path granddaughter go?
I was determined to understand WHY this was happening — and to find a solution. Just a few years after graduating from USC with my master’s degree in cinematic arts, I stepped away from making narrative content to focus on a search for answers to make a documentary called, “Pioneers in Skirts.”
Pioneers in Skirts started as a film about the stereotyping and sexism women confront in their lives and careers and expanded into what we ALL can do about it. It’s a feature film that addresses perceptions and behaviors that can chip away at a girl or woman and make her feel like she must re-think her dreams.
And, as terrifying as it was to admit my own struggles, I put my own story into the film.
This journey of self-discovery helped me to better understand what was happening around me and reclaim everything that made me a filmmaker.
Today I continue to make narrative films (for others and myself) and supplement my income as a Production Sound Mixer on major productions as well as teach “Production Sound for Directors” at UCLA.
