María Silvia Esteve is an Argentine director, screenwriter and producer, born in Guatemala. Trained in fine arts and music since her youth, she first studied opera singing before pursuing a career in film.
She studied and taught audiovisual arts at the University of Buenos Aires and was awarded by the Spanish Association of Authors of Cinematographic Photography AEC, before starting her career with the film "Silvia". The feature film had its world premiere at IDFA 2018, received the "Artistic Vision Award" at Docaviv and won awards at DocLisboa and the Habana Film Festival, among others.
Selected for the Buenos Aires Youth Art Biennial, the filmmaker participated in IDFAcademy, IDFA Summer School and IDFA Project Space, with her new project in production phase, "Mailin". The film was awarded the IDFA Bertha Fund, the Metropolitan Arts Fund, SCAM's Draft of a Documentary Dream. It was a double winner at Visions du Réel Industry 2022 for the project with the highest international potential.
The only Argentine film at Cannes 2022, her short film "The Spiral" had its world premiere at the 54th Directors' Fortnight, and has been selected for festivals such as New Directors/New Films at MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center, Hong Kong International Film Festival, IDFA, among others.
Currently, Silvia has started writing her first feature film "Fauces", winner of the Focus COPRO' 2022 - Cannes, selected for the TorinoFilmLab. The film is based on her film "Criatura", which won the Pardino d'oro for best author's short film at the Locarno Film Festival 2021.
As co-founder and president of the women's audiovisual collective HANA Films, her films are stories of women, led by women, with strong experimental and plastic research.