The Refuge

Maria Millan is a Venezuelan film director and a screenwriter, based in London. In 2026, she will take part in an international art residency organised by SACO (Bi- Annual Contemporary Art Fair) in the Antofagasta region of Chile.

She recently directed Hands on Clay, a film commissioned by Sheffield DocFest and sponsored by Prime, which premiered at the festival in 2025. The film offers an intimate portrait of two women ceramic artists who step away from London’s pace to embrace a slower, tactile way of living and working, reflecting Maria’s ongoing interest in process, labour and emotional landscapes.

Maria is an alumna of The Latino Filmmakers Network Fellowship at the Sundance Film Festival 2025, where she participated with her screenplay The Hollow Women. The project was also developed through the Hessen Lab at the B3 Biennale in Frankfurt, was a semi-finalist for the Stowe Lab Screenwriting Fellowship in the US, and was selected for the Abortion Pipeline 2025. She previously took part in Talent Led: Next Gen by the Independent Film Trust (now Story Compound) in London.

Her documentary Trans_CCS premiered at the 33rd Tampa Bay International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and went on to screen internationally, including at GRRL HAUS Cinema, BANGIFF, Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival, Seattle Latino, Tokyo Shorts, and The Lonely Seal Film Festival in Boston. The film follows a trans woman navigating survival during lockdown and has been recognised for its sensitive, character-driven approach.

Maria directed her first feature-length documentary, Family Pride, Queer Aside, which premiered in 2024 at the Feminist Border Arts Film Festival in the US, where it won both the Jury and Audience Awards. The film screened at festivals across the US and Europe, including Queer Film Festival Utrecht, and has been used in academic contexts by researchers and educators. It was included in research at the University of Boston’s Queer Studies Department and screened at universities across the UK, Ireland, Germany and the US, accompanied by talks and forums led by Maria.

​In fiction, Maria directed the thriller The Refuge (2018), starring Lujza Richter Hugo and Demi Hannah Scott. Set in a women’s aid refuge on the verge of closure, the film was selected for L’Etrange Film Festival in Paris and The Women’s Film Festival in Seattle, received a private screening and Q&A at Silencio (David Lynch’s private members’ club), and is currently available on Amazon.

Maria began her creative career in the art department, working on set design for television advertising in Caracas before relocating to London in 2011, where she transitioned into photography, contributing to publications including Vogue Italia and Fruk Magazine. She holds a BA (Hons) in Communications and Media specialising in Audio-Visual Arts from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, and trained in directing and editing at EICTV in Cuba.

Across all her work, Maria centres under-represented voices and marginalised communities, with a sustained commitment to stories led by women and LGBTQ+ individuals. Her practice consistently challenges systems of silence and inequality, and she actively advocates against domestic violence, using cinema and photography as tools for visibility, empathy and social change.