Joshua MarstonBirth Place: California, USA Heritage: American Famous for: Maria Full of Grace' (2004) Contact Joshua Marston | 
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Maria Full of Grace Background: “About a year into the process, I realized that aside from making the film about a girl who lived very far away, I was making a film about a girl who was doing something universal in trying to figure out the meaning of her life.” Joshua Marston on “Maria Full of Grace” A Los Angeles-born filmmaker who has an atypical way in pursuing film direction, Joshua Marston first gained notice with his praised short film, “Bus to Queens” (1999), from which he won four awards. He received even more attention and success as the director and writer of the 2004 critically acclaimed “Maria Full of Grace,” his feature debut that featured an Oscar nominating turn from Catalina Sandino Moreno. For his bravura efforts, Marston was handed numerous awards, such as an Independent Spirit Award, a Sundance Film Festival Award, a Berlin International Film Festival Award, a Toronto Film Critics Association Award, a Gotham Award, three Deauville Film Festival Awards, a New York Film Critics Circle Award and an Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award. His new film, “ The Fortress of Solitude,” is set to be released in 2008. Marston also has directed an episode of “Six feet Under.”
Childhood and Family: Joshua Jacob Marston was born on August 13, 1968, in Los Angeles County, California. He was educated at the prestigious Beverly Hills High School, where he did some photography, and then at U.C. Berkeley, where he studied Social Sciences. After returning to the US from Prague, Czech Republic, he earned an MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1994. He also holds a MFA degree in filmmaking from the New York University.
Career: Joshua Marston started his career as a journalist for Paris's Life before joining the ABC News during the Gulf War. He then moved to Prague, Czech Republic where he became an English teacher for a year and shortly afterwards, made his way back to the U.S to pursue his master's degree in Chicago. He moved again, this time to New York to study filmmaking. In 1999, Marston launched his direction career with the award-winning short “Bus to Queens,” a student film which he also wrote. The 23-minute film nabbed three Canyonlands Film Festival in the categories of Best of Festival, Best Drama and Best Student Produced, as well as the Best of Festival for Best Student Film at the 1999 Nashville Film Festival. He also has directed many other acclaimed shorts, including “Voice of an Angel” and “Trifecta.” Marston's massive breakthrough arrived five years later when he directed and wrote “Maria Full of Grace” (2004), his first feature-length film. A drama about a pregnant Colombian teen who becomes a drug equid in order to make some urgently needed money for her family, the film won a number of honors, including an Oscar nomination for the leading artist Catalina Sandino Moreno and became a festival darling. The writer-director himself took home 15 awards, including an Alfred Bauer from the Berlin International Film Festival, an Independent Spirit for Best First Screenplay, an Audience Award from the Sundance Film Festival, a Toronto Film Critics Association for Best First Feature, three Deauville Film Festival Awards, a Gotham for Breakthrough Director, a New York Film Critics Circle for Best First Film and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association for New Generation Award, and 11 nominations, such as an Independent Spirit nomination for Best Director, a Golden Berlin Bear nomination and Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize nomination. After the much-talked-about work, Marston directed “The Silence,” a 2005 episode of the comedy series “Six feet Under” written by Bruce Eric Kaplan. However, he then disappeared from the industry. Marston is set to return to the big screen in 2008 with the based-on-novel “The Fortress of Solitude,” which now is in pre-production. He teams up with producers Michael London and Paul S. Mezey for the project.
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