Nancy was born in Athens, Greece, a place she continues to consider home in the deepest sense. While she has been living in Berlin for the past twenty years and feels at home there as well, her understanding of home extends beyond geography. For her, home is where she speaks the language and where the people she loves are.

She began working with Catalyst in autumn 2025. At the school, Nancy teaches the second-year Screenwriting seminar Tragedy and Cinema, a course that brings together classical dramaturgy with film history and close film analysis.

Her professional background spans more than three decades across film, theatre and television. She studied Classical Philology before going on to study Film Direction and Screenwriting, completing a Master of Arts at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. Over the course of her career, she has written and directed numerous award-winning short films and television documentaries. Her work has been recognised with major honours including the Grimme Preis and the Melina Merkouri Greek State Award, and she has participated in the Biennale of Young Artists in Rome.

Her first feature film, The Surface of Things (2017), premiered in competition at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and received the Best Greek Newcomer Director’s Award at the Athens International Film Festival. Her second feature, Maysoon (2024), screened at both Oldenburg International Film Festival and Thessaloniki International Film Festival, where it received the Best Performance Award for Sabrina Amali. The film was also awarded Best Film at the German Film Festival Filmnächte Ahrenshoop.

Alongside her film work, Nancy has been actively involved in theatre and opera productions in Greece, Italy and Berlin, where she has created video projections and developed dramaturgical concepts. She has participated in screenwriting workshops with her own projects and has taught a range of short seminars on filmmaking and acting as a freelance practitioner.

Her motivation for joining Catalyst was rooted in a desire to teach on a more permanent basis within an educational model she found interesting, challenging, creative, international and practice-oriented. She felt her experience and qualifications aligned well with the school’s approach. In practice, she found that Catalyst offered an environment that values individual contribution while maintaining a strong commitment to implementing the curriculum.

Nancy’s areas of expertise include writing, directing and dramaturgy for both cinema and theatre. Working closely with actors is central to her practice. She brings long-standing experience in mixed-media performance, combining text, music and video, alongside a strong background in documentary research, interviewing and documentary directing.

Within her teaching role at Catalyst, she finds particular meaning in working with younger people and engaging in dialogue and creative conflict around aesthetics, ideas and artistic interests. Communicating academic knowledge and long-term professional experience to younger students challenges her to reassess and adapt her own perspectives. This process allows her to test the relevance of her ideas and concepts, while witnessing students develop new ways of analysing film narrative, exploring storytelling techniques and generating original ideas.

Outside her teaching role, Nancy remains deeply engaged in her creative and professional practice. She is constantly searching for new, effective and appropriate narrative tools that help filmmakers tell emotionally powerful and relevant stories.

Her current interests are shaped by questions around emotional and political cinema. She reflects on how filmmakers can remain analogue, human, vulnerable and unique while engaging with technological progress. She is concerned with the role of cinema in a time of rising totalitarian regimes, the realities of climate change and the possibility of altering its course, and the search for alternatives to patriarchy and capitalism. She also continues to question how artists can remain rooted in their own cultures while telling universal stories, and whether cinema as a shared experience can survive.

The values guiding her work are freedom, justice, respect and tolerance, both in life and in all professional and artistic collaborations. Among the works that have significantly influenced her practice are Ana Mendieta’s Body Tracks, John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence, Radiohead’s OK Computer and Albert Camus’ The Stranger.

At this point in her life, Nancy finds the greatest sense of satisfaction in a combination of personal and professional experiences. These include watching her adolescent son grow up, sharing her films with audiences, developing films from initial ideas to the screen alongside trusted creative collaborators, teaching and interacting with young people, and enjoying the freedom and maturity that come with ageing.

Award-winning writer-director and dramaturgist with extensive experience in film, theatre and mixed-media performance, teaching classical dramaturgy and film analysis at Catalyst. Read Nancy's profile.

Nancy Biniadaki

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