Marion Standefer is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist from Philadelphia, PA based in Paris, France. Her photos, films, writing and music explore possession, interdependence, cross-cultural relationships, and migration through personal narrative & collective storytelling.
She is the president of Les Meilleurs du Monde, INC, a non-profit organization amplifying migrant voices through film, photography, and educational initiatives, and the founder of LMDM Productions, a French production company producing socially-engaged features, documentaries, series, short films, and short-form content.
Marion earned her B.A. in Sociology, with minors in French & Francophone Studies and Urban Education from University of Pennsylvania (summa cum laude), and completed her Master’s in Education at CY Cergy Paris Université through a Fulbright Scholarship. Her background in ethnographic research informs her creative work: her narrative films, documentaries, and photographs are preceded by months or years of interviews and participant observation.
Her debut feature film, Le Meilleur du Monde, has been selected by 26 international film festivals and received 12 awards, including Best Narrative Feature (Venice Film Week), le Dikalo de la Paix (Festival International de Film Panafricain de Cannes), Best First-Time Director (Berlin Indie Film Fest), and the First Place Special Jury Prize (A Slavic Tale Film and T.V. Festival). In addition to traveling with her feature on the festival circuit, she is writing/producing/directing/shooting/editing short films, documentaries, a docu-series, and writing her next feature. She also shoots fashion and humanitarian photography and exhibits her work in major European cities. Alongside her creative and non-profit work, she leads filmmaking workshops for youth and emerging artists and is recording her sophomore album.
