After working for several years as a producer and a communication and development manager in film and television, Maria Drandaki founded her own production label Homemade Films in 2009.
With a taste for sharp, cutting edge, innovative cinema, Maria has produced and co-produced several successful short and feature films, which participated and won awards in many major international film festivals and film events (Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Toronto, Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary, IDFA, Palm Springs, the European Academy Film Awards, the BAFTA, the Gotham Awards, the LUX Audience Award, etc.) and got distributed in movie theatres, streaming platforms and TV-channels around the world.
Her credits include Syllas Tzoumerkas’ Homeland, A Blast and The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, Yorgos Zois’ Interruption, Emre Yeksan’s The Gulf, Nikos Labôt’s Her Job, Nely Reguera’s The Volunteer, Christos Passalis’ and Syllas Tzoumerkas’ co-direction The City and the City, Christos Passalis’ Silence 6-9, as well as the multi-awarded short films Limbo and Electric Swan by Konstantina Kotzamani and A Drowning Man by Mahdi Fleifel.
Her latest feature film productions and co-productions are Sofia Exarchou’s Animal (Locarno International Competition – Pardo for Best Performance 2023), Mladen Djordjevic’s Working Class Goes to Hell (Toronto – Midnight Madness 2023), Yorgos Zois’ Arcadia (Berlinale – Encounters Competition 2024) and Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown (Directors’ Fortnight 2024 – Cannes).
Her in-development and in-production projects include the upcoming feature films by Christos Karakepelis (Future Tenses and Death Plan for a Dog and a Man), Nikolas Kolovos (The Hermit), Konstantina Kotzamani (Titanic Ocean), Nikos Kyritsis (Baby), Alexandra Matheou (Shibboleth) Boris Petkovič (FC Freedom), Elina Psykou (Patrimonial Fears and Other Symptoms) and Syllas Tzoumerkas (A Thousand Days, A Thousand Nights).
She is a member of the EAVE and ACE producers’ networks, the Greek Producers’ Alliance, the European and the Hellenic Film Academies.