Jianna Maarten

Jianna Maarten Saada got both her degrees in storytelling at Columbia University's prestigious creative writing program and AFI's Directing MFA. Her thesis film Sin Cielo took home the Grand Jury Prize at SIFF, Grand Jury, Audience Award and Best of Fest at Ivy Film Festival, the young Jury Prize at Palm Springs, the Bruce Corwin award at Santa Barbara Film Festival and was a 2020 Oscar contender distributed on HBO. Critics say Saada has a "masterful way of framing scenes to create emotion" and called Sin Cielo a film "that defies criticism and should be a benchmark for filmmakers with any intent on producing a piece of work that is relevant today." Maarten Saada employs extensive research for her projects and enjoys building complex, multi-layered worlds firmly rooted in reality by way of the characters who inhabit them.