MARIE ULLRICH
WRITER, DIRECTOR & PRODUCER

Marie is a writer and director living in Chicago.

After receiving a BA in Mass Communications from Emerson College, Marie freelanced in Boston, New Orleans and Nashville, TN, as an Associate Producer and Art Director for commercials, feature films, episodic TV, reality TV, and live events. Honing in on her preference for independent film, Marie left production to work the film festival circuit, where she led the Ticketing, Publicity and Operations departments for such festivals as the IFP Market in New York, Sundance, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Reeling, the Chicago International Documentary Festival and the Chicago International Film Festival.

During that time she wrote her first feature film, The Tune-Up Girl, which was a finalist at the Sundance Filmmakers Labs and won Best Pitch by audience vote at the Columbia College Written Image Awards.

Currently Marie is working towards her MFA in Film & Video Directing at Columbia College Chicago. Her films counting control and Fugue have made the festival rounds; her most recent short film, Cache, received a Weisman Award artistic excellence and is currently playing festivals.

Her current film, Faster!, has received a Weisman Award for artistic excellence and is currently in preproduction. Based on the feature film The Tune-Up Girl, it is a film about a bike messenger who is bottoming out on her job and in her life.

Marie enjoys French contemporary films and long distance walks; in the summer of 2005 she walked 500 miles in 30 days, from the French Pyrenees to the West coast of Spain via the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.