Mike J. Marin (Navajo/Laguna Pueblo/Washoe) is an award-winning filmmaker who was born and raised in Oakland, CA. He has been a fan of movies, mainly horror and action, since he was very young. Mike is a self-taught artist, music producer, and filmmaker who sharpened his skills at Chicago's Columbia College, earning his BA in Film/Video.

He began compiling stories of the supernatural in 2005 and began writing the screenplay to his debut horror feature The Smudging in April 2015. The project went underway the following May and was completed in November 2015. In 2017, Mike uploaded the film to Amazon Prime, where over the years it has gained a cult status in the Native American horror genre.

Since 2019, Mike has won several awards for Best Director, Best Documentary, Best Horror Film, and in 2025, he received an award for Best Actor for his performance in his native urban horror-thriller First Voice as well as a Best Innovative Idea for Feature Film award. In December 2025, First Voice took home the TIFA 2025 Golden Film of the Year award and the Golden Suspense Feature Film of the Year award.

His project Blacktop Poets: The Story of Without Rezervation has currently won six awards including Best Native American Documentary Filmmaker, Best Musical Short Documentary, and Best Native American Documentary.

In April 2026, Mike became the recipient of the Satyajit Ray Honorary Award for Best Independent Filmmaker for the Contribution to World Cinema.

Mike now resides in Los Angeles, CA and is currently working on more film projects, including a tv series pilot and another entry to "The Smudgingverse".