Marie-Françoise Theodore

MarieFrançoise Theodore is an interdisciplinary artist of Haitian descent working in film television and theatre as writer actor and filmmaker A native of Chicago IL she resides in Los Angeles CA with her son Aaron MarieFrançoise is the recipient of a 2006 Women In FilmGeneral Motors Acceleration Grant for Emerging Filmmakers and is a 2006 Film Independent Fellow ProjectInvolve Honoree formerly IFPLA and was mentored by esteemed film and television director Neema Barnett In 2007 MarieFrancoise received a Frances E Williams Artist Grant for Writing to attend Natalie Goldbergs Old Friend Far Away Memoir Writing Retreat in Sante Fe NM Her debut feature length screenplay The Street adapted from the awardwinning novel by Ann Petry has been a finalist for several prestigious screenplay programs including the Bush Foundation Fellowship Tribeca All Access Connects and twice for the Roy W Dean Foundation MarieFrançoise has been shortlisted for the Sundance Screenwriter Labs for three consecutive years   MarieFrançoise is the writerdirectoractor of two experimental narrative short films the multiaward winning rebel in the soul and bloodmemory  rebel in the soul has screened in over ten film festivals nationally and abroad winning Best Experimental Short at the 2003 Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival in NY MarieFrançoise starred in the independent feature film Strange As Angels also Associate Producer distributed by Image Entertainment Love Jones New Line Cinema and Small Metal Jacket BBC Films MarieFrançoise holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College Chicago IL MarieFrançoise is currently working on her memoir Not A Proper Haitian Girl which chronicles her Chicago childhood in the 1970s from placement in an orphanage at birth through to her natural mothers subsequent marriage to MarieFrançoises fostermothers nephew The memoir explores the complex relationships of an extended foster and natural family and the consequences of memory and identity for a young girl