María Agui Carter is an independent filmmaker, a playwright, a screenwriter, and an Assistant Professor of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College.

She has won George Peabody Gardner, Warren, and Rockefeller Awards, and served as a visiting scholar at Harvard, Tulane and Brandeis.  Over a dozen of her films have shown on PBS, internationally, and in film festivals.  A gifted public speaker, she has been asked to speak at the White House, NEA, Smithsonian, Tribeca, DocNYC, and served as juror for festivals and funds from IDA to ITVS and NEH.  

Getting her start as a Producer at WGBH, Boston’s flagship Public Television station, over a dozen of Maria’s documentaries have broadcast internationally, and premiered at festivals from Tribeca to Frameline.  Recent projects include the hybrid fiction/documentary, Rebel, PBS, about a Latina soldier and spy of the American Civil War, winner of a 2014 Erik Barnouw Award (Best Historic Films in America) and the Latina SciGirls PBS and transmedia series (consulting producer for series, Director of opening episode), nominated for a 2019 Daytime Emmy Award.

Maria is currently working on The Alleged Project, about Patricia Esparza, incarcerated for the murder of her rapist by her boyfriend.

Ms. Agui Carter is also a writer.

She wrote the narration for Chevolution, about the iconic Korda photograph of Ernesto “Che” Guevarra (Tribeca premiere 2008, Red Envelope, Netflix); her play 14 Freight Trains, about the first American to die in Iraq, Jose Gutierrez, who received American citizenship posthumously, opened to rave reviews at Arena Stage in Washington, DC in 2015.

She is slated to direct her new fiction script The Secret Life of La Mariposa.

It was selected for a Sundance Screenwriter’s Intensive Lab, A Sundance Director’s Club Intensive Lab, a New York Stage and Film Lab, and the Cine Qua Non screenwriters’ lab. A fable about an undocumented girl, immigrant rights, and the environment, Maria imagined a magical realist fiction script using her knowledge of the psychological experience of growing up undocumented.

Ms. Agui Carter is the former Board Chair of NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers), and on the Writer’s Guild of America Diversity Alliance.  She is co-author of the 2017 “White Paper on Gender Inequality in Film and Television” and completing a 2020 “White Paper on Diversity in Media.”

SELECTED CREDITS

• The Alleged Project – Director, Producer, Writer, Feature Documentary - In Development

• Secret Life of La Mariposa – Writer/Director – In Development

• SciGirls Latina –Director, Series Advisor | WTPT for National PBS Broadcast 2018 (30 min. 6 episodes plus Transmedia games, online videos). Daytime Emmy nomination, 2019.

• Understanding Cuba – Scriptwriter | American Museum of Natural History, NYC, Nov. 2016-2017 (10 min.)

• Voices of Dreamtown - Consulting Producer | 2016 festival release, feature film

• 14 Freight Trains – Playwright | Arena Stage, opened Washington, DC, Fall 2015

• Rebel - Writer, Producer, Director | Iguana Films; PBS National broadcast 2013, (75 min. & 52 min.) Erik Barnouw Honorable Mention.

• No Job for a Woman - Producer | Hurry Up Sister Productions, PBS World Broadcast 2012, 65 min.

• Secret Soldier - Writer, Producer, Director | Iguana Films, 2012, National Parks, 20 min.

• Cleats - Writer, Director | Discovery En Espanol Films, 2008-10, 7 min.

• Unnatural Causes Series – Consulting Producer | Vital Pictures, PBS broadcast, 2009 7 part series

• Chevolution - Writer | Red Envelope Entertainment, a division of Netflix, 2008, 86 min

• College Track Series – Producer, Pilot | Roundtable Prod., National PBS, 2004, three 56 min. programs

• Rumble Over West Side Story - Writer, Producer, Director | La Plaza, WGBH, syndicated  - 2001, 27 min.

• The Devil's Music - Writer, Producer, Director | National PBS, 2000, 56 min.

SELECTED AWARDS/HONORS

• Sundance Director’s Club Intensive Fellow | 2018 Spring, LA.

• MOME Fellow (Mayor’s Office for Media & Entertainment) NYC, 2016, 2017

• Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, 2015-2016 Director’s Tour of seven states screenings with REBEL.

• Cine Qua Non Screenwriting Laboratory, Mexico, 2015 Fellow

• NYSAF screenwriter’s labs, NY state – 2015 Fellow

• Sundance Intensive Latino Screenwriting Project, 2014 Fellow

• Gutsy Gals Award for best feature of the Americas – 2014 for REBEL at Berkshire Conf. of Women

• Powermeter100 – El Planeta News, One of the 100 Most Influential to Hispanics in MA, 2014

• Erik Barnouw Honorable Mention Award – 2014 Best historical film in America, Organization of American Historians for REBEL

• National Black Programming Consortium 2006 New Media Institute consulting producer

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting/PBS Producer's Academy 2005 fellow

• Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities 2004 & 2008 grant

• National Association of Latino Independent Producer's Academy 2003, 2006 Producer’s Lab fellow

• Massachusetts Cultural Council 2002 grant

• Writers' Guild of America, East member, 1999-present, Diversity Council, 2014-Present