Adrian Tizóc Marshall is a Mestizo writer, director, cinematographer, photographer, and musician with a Bachelor of Arts in Film Production from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona where he was born and raised, which also served as the surreal backdrop for his debut short film, “Gentile (La gentil)”, an ambitious narrative endeavor that won “Best Experimental Short” at Niagara Falls International Short Festival, Kansas Arthouse Festival and the New York Independent Cinema Awards alongside nominations and selections from Toronto Indie Shorts, Arizona Underground Film Festival, Munich Short Film Awards, Chicago Indie Film Awards and Roma Shorts. Adrian’s work has often been compared to filmmakers like David Lynch, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Charles Burnett, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Ingmar Bergman for its emphasis on emotional, abstract narratives that draw extensively from cultural studies, existentialist literature, psychology and international cinema.

Adrian has also recently completed work his third short film, “With Sticks and Stones (Con palos y piedras)”, as part of his MFA studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The film is a grim, unforgettable chronicle of abuse and addiction in Mexican culture informed by Franz Kafka’s “The Judgment” and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” as well as Mesoamerican mythology and history to illustrate tragic connections between cultural trauma and the present lives of Mexican youth.