ABOUT           

MARZENA

  I like well-developed concepts and strong stories. And I like numbers — they keep us grounded in reality. As a filmmaker, I work at the intersection of clarity and chaos: vanishing points, fractured identities, messy truths, hidden causes, and unsolvable dilemmas. I explore the tension between these forces: where things fall apart, and where meaning begins.

– MARZENA GRZEGORCZYK

Marzena is a writer, director, and producer with a strong background in creative development. She holds a PhD from Stanford and an MFA from USC.  She is currently filming A REPORT FROM THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS, a legal documentary thriller set in Europe and New York. Her work has screened at over 80 festivals around the world – including Venice IFF, the Hamptons, Mar del Plata, and the Houston IFF – and aired on PBS and Canal+, earning recognition from the Rolex Mentor & Protégé Arts Initiative (finalist), Women in Film (Los Angeles), and the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship (semifinalist), and over a dozen creative excellence awards.

Her film experience spans more than 20 productions across creative and technical roles, learning the craft alongside some of cinema’s most visionary figures, including Nina Foch, Judy Irola (ASC), Carlo and Edoardo Ponti, and Mark Harris. Beyond the set, she’s brought her storytelling instincts to HBO as a creative development consultant, and to OpenAI, where she worked as an expert on crafting complex, high-context questions to train advanced language models.

Marzena has published widely on literature, cinema, and narrative theory. She is the author of Private Topographies (Palgrave Macmillan), a book that explores the interplay of politics, narrative, and spatial imagination. Her article From Urb of Clay to the Hypodermic City: Improper Cities in Modern Latin America was selected as one of the 25 most impactful essays published in the last 25 years by the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, and featured in Latin American Cultural Studies: A Reader (Routledge, 2018). She has taught film, Latin American culture, and cultural theory at institutions such as UCLA, Stanford University, and Emory, and has delivered lectures on four continents. Her current book project, Where Nothing Happens: Semiotic Black Holes, Drifting Paradigms, and Justice à Rebours on Europe’s Periphery, investigates how narrative monoculture sustains systems of oppression and how people navigate inverted realities shaped by lawless, unseen mechanisms of control.

Born in Warsaw (Poland), she studied at the University of Budapest (Hungary), Stanford University (PhD in Latin American & Comparative Literature), and the USC School of Cinematic Arts (MFA in Film Production, with a concentration in directing and cinematography). She holds dual U.S. and European Union (EU) citizenship and resides in Atlanta.

SELECTED AWARDS

  • Polish Institute of Cinema screenwriting award for JAR: JEWISH AUTONOMOUS REGION (documentary feature); experts rating: excellent (2011)
  • Nicholl Fellowships in screenwriting, SEX LIFE OF SAVAGES selected one of the 100 best screenplays of the year (out of 5050), semifinals (http://www.oscars.org/nicholl/index.html) (2007).
  • Nominated to Sundance NHK Awards (2003).
  • „Women in Film Award” (Los Angeles) (2001).
  • City of Atlanta, Bureau of Cultural Affairs, Grants for Individual Artists, for post-production of ENGLISH IS FOR OPTIMISTS (1996).
  • Audience award for screenplay SEX LIFE OF SAVAGES, Interscenario Festival, Wrocław, Poland (2010).
  • Nominated to Rolex Protégé Programme, Geneva, Switzerland (10 nominated film directors from the entire world) (2004).
  • Selected as top choice by Louis Vuitton/Moët&Chandon for their ad campaign (2003).
  • Film FAITHFUL (2002) screened at over 80 festivals worldwide, including: Venice (Italy) International Film Festival, Kyoto (Japan), Sienna (Italy), Mar del Plata (Argentina) Hamptons (Hamptons); Houston; Seattle; New York/Avignon Film Festival and others; won 12 awards for creative excellence.
  • Teaching Fellowship University of Southern California, School of Cinema-Television (2000-01) intermediate and advanced cinematography.
  • Center for Teaching and Course Development, Course Development Award, Emory University, Department of Political Science/Department of Spanish (Summer 1998).
  • International Travel Grant, Emory University (1998).
  • American Council for Learned Societies, Travel Grant for Conferences Abroad (1996).
  • New Faculty Development Award, Emory University (1998).
  • Emory University Research Council Summer Grant (Summer 1995).
  • New Faculty Development Grant, University of Oregon, for research in Cuba (June 1994).
  • Josephine de Kármán Dissertation Fellowship (1992-1993).
  • Knowles Fellowship for Feminist Studies in Latin America for research in Argentina (1992).
  • Fellowship of the Center for International Studies, Stanford University (1991).
  • Mellon Foundation Travel Research Grant for Summer Research in Brazil (1988).
  • Spanish & Portugese Department Fellowship, Stanford University (1987-1991).
  • Fellowship at University of Panama and Panama College, Panama (1987).
  • Fellowship of the Hungarian Ministry of Culture held at University of Havana, Cuba (1984/5).
  • Literary Award of the Fundación „Fernando Rielo”, Madrid, Spain (1982).
  • Fellowship at Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Hungary (1980-1986).
  • Expert for OpenAI’s advanced model training initiative, designing complex, high-context prompts to train next-generation language models (2024).

  • Marzena’s article From Urb of Clay to the Hypodermic City: Improper cities in Modern Latin America, was selected as one of the 25 most impactful articles in the last 25 years published by the Journal Latin American Cultural Studies (2018).
  • Interviewing prospective students for Stanford Office for Undergraduate Admissions (2017 – ongoing).
  • Reviewer for TEXTOS HIBRIDOS (USA/Chile).
  • Member of the Scientific Advisory Committee, CHRONOTOPE REVISITED. International Interdisciplinary Conference, Sopot-Gdynia, Poland (April 2017).
  • Consultant for LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE (Paris, France) on life/work of Gunter Holzmann, author, recipient of Legion of Honor (anti-nazi fighter, ecologist, anthropologist), Santa Cruz, Bolivia (199).

UPCOMING EVENTS

SEPT

12

1 PM PST

Filming A REPORT FROM THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS. Behind the scenes and Q&A with the director, Marzena Grzegorczyk.

PST time zone (for US-based viewers). For a registration link, email Marzena [marzena@nostos-films.com]. Please join us!

SEPT

13

2 PM CET

Filming A REPORT FROM THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS. Behind the scenes and Q&A with the director, Marzena Grzegorczyk.

CET time zone (for European audiences). For a registration link, email Marzena [marzena@nostos-films.com]. Please join us!