L. Marcus Williams

L. Marcus Williams is an American independent filmmaker best known for his award-winning student film, "Lifeline." Inspired by his own experience as a crisis hotline operator and a survivor of attempted suicide, the film earned Williams a Student Grant from the National Board of Review in 2018. Williams was born on August 8, 1975, in the suburbs of Long Island, New York. As a child, he was inspired by his father's love for classic cinema and his mother's success as a director of community theater. For fun, he would make movies with his friends in the backyard, using the family's camcorder. In 2002, he wrote and directed his first feature-length film, "written by Franklin Mann," about an author struggling with writer's block and sexual repression. It was made in accordance with the Dogme 95 Manifesto. He followed that with "Scopophilia," in which he also starred as a videographer with an unhealthy obsession over his dead sister. The film premiered in 2003, at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 2005, Williams moved to New York City, where he achieved modest success as a theatre director. His one-act play, "Role Play," won the Audience Favorite Award at the Short Play Lab in 2011, and in 2012, he directed Daniel Guyton's "Attic" for the Midtown International Theatre Festival, as well as an Off-Off-Broadway production of Neil LaBute's "reasons to be pretty." Williams returned to the world of filmmaking in 2015, when he enrolled into the film program at Brooklyn College. He earned a degree in both film production and psychology three years later. His first two student films, "The Monster Under My Bed" and "Nail-Biter," were released in 2017. The latter, about a desperately lonely man who breaks into a woman's apartment just to feel close to her, premiered on Amazon Prime Video. "Lifeline" was his thesis film. It premiered on May 29, 2018, at the Brooklyn College Film Festival, where Williams was voted Best Director and Best Editor. The film went on to win several other awards, including the aforementioned student grant from the National Board of Review. It also received rave reviews and was nominated for Best Short Film of the Year by the critics at UK Film Review. In addition to being a filmmaker, Williams is also a mental health counselor with a Master's Degree in Social Work from Columbia University. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and son.