Vasia Markides is a Cypriot-American filmmaker, artist, and educator whose work blends documentary storytelling with community engagement and ecological imagination. She is the founder of the Famagusta Ecocity Project, a bicommunal initiative that seeks to transform Varosha, the sealed-off “ghost city” of Famagusta, Cyprus, into a model of peacebuilding and ecological regeneration.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, and raised in Maine, Markides grew up with her mother’s stories of a lost home in Varosha, a haunting inheritance that became the catalyst for her artistic journey. She has directed and produced media projects that cross the boundaries of art, journalism, and activism, with work featured in The Nation, BBC, Al Jazeera, Reuters and the AP. Her practice extends beyond film into painting, photography, and interdisciplinary projects that foreground contested landscapes and the fragile relationship between people and place.

Markides holds an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and a BA in Anthropology and Art from Middlebury College. She has taught courses in media, photography, video, and sustainable communities at both the secondary and undergraduate level.

Her debut feature documentary, Waking Famagusta, is the culmination of two decades of filming her ancestral city and follows her journey to move beyond inherited loss into collective action. At once personal and political, the film reflects her lifelong commitment to using storytelling as a tool for healing, ecological awareness, and social change.