Jianna Maarten Saada
- Director
- Writer
- Actress
Unflinching in their inspection of class, race, gender, and existence within a social paradigm skewed to reward affluence and access, Jianna Maarten Saada is a writer director who earned both degrees in storytelling at Columbia University's Creative writing program and the American Film Institute's Directing MFA. A published author of literary fiction, Jianna is the recipient of the Blue Mountain Center residency, the Holleigh Bernson memorial scholarship, and a 2021-2022 Sundance Episodic Lab fellow.
Having written and/or directed over sixteen shorts, her film Sin Cielo won Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Seattle International Film Festival, Santa Barbara International, Palm Springs, IFF, Champs Elyées, and Anchorage International with over one hundred and twenty official selections world wide. Named top ten at AFI fest and a 2020 Oscar contender, 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.' Sin Cielo was distributed on HBO Max. in post on her 16th short Amend, Saada loves building rich, complex worlds, twists on genre, and researching new projects. She lives in Los Angeles with her rescue poodle Atticus.
Having written and/or directed over sixteen shorts, her film Sin Cielo won Grand Jury and Audience Awards at Seattle International Film Festival, Santa Barbara International, Palm Springs, IFF, Champs Elyées, and Anchorage International with over one hundred and twenty official selections world wide. Named top ten at AFI fest and a 2020 Oscar contender, 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.' Sin Cielo was distributed on HBO Max. in post on her 16th short Amend, Saada loves building rich, complex worlds, twists on genre, and researching new projects. She lives in Los Angeles with her rescue poodle Atticus.
