biography

Tonia is a Cypriot writer/director and producer whose work focuses on social and women’s issues. She is a member of the Hellenic and European Film Academies and the European Women's Audiovisual Network. She is Berlinale Talents and EFP Producers on the move alumna. She served 8 years as co-artistic director of Cyprus Film Days International Festival and 5 years as vice president and board member of the Directors Guild of Cyprus. She has been on several film festival juries (Karlovy Vary, Thessaloniki, Off Camera, ISFFC, Encounters), a creative advisor at Rawi Screenwriters Lab (formerly run in collaboration with Sundance Institute) and a script reader for the Greek Film Centre.

Tonia’s short films, DEAD END (2013), LULLABY OF THE BUTTERFLY (2014), I DON’T LIKE THE WIND I LIKE THE SUN (2020) and DAPHNE (2022) have been officially selected in more than 100 international film festivals, including prestigious and A-list ones (incl. Locarno, Clermont-Ferrand, Palm Springs, Pöff Shorts, Cinemed Montpellier, Stockholm, Encounters, Busan, Drama, Cork, Sarajevo) winning several awards. DEAD END is represented by SND Films (NL) and has been sold to Asia, USA and Europe, while DAPHNE is represented by Radiator Sales (BE).

Her directorial debut, PAUSE (2018), which she also produced, is represented by Film Republic (UK) and has participated in cocoPITCH 2015 and in Karlovy Vary WIP 2017. It has been officially selected in more than 80 international film festivals, including Santa Barbara and Seattle as well as many FIAPF accredited 'A' list festivals, like Karlovy Vary, Cairo, Stockholm, Sofia, Kitzbuhel, Transilvania and Sydney, the latter at which it was selected for the European Film Promotion section "Europe! voices of women in film” as one of ten films by Europe's ten most outstanding women directors. PAUSE received rave reviews internationally from the trades and other established media, including the Hollywood Reporter and LA times, and was listed one of "20 most daring films of 2019” by Rotten Tomatoes. PAUSE received 13 awards including the FIPRESCI Prize at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Best Film by the Greek Film Critics Association at the Panorama of European Cinema. It has been nominated for “Best First-time Director” and “Best Actress” at the Hellenic Film Academy Iris Awards 2019, while its screenplay is listed in the core collection of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It has been released theatrically in USA and Europe, distributed in Asia, while streaming on major platforms including Amazon Prime USA and HBO Europe.

Tonia is now developing several short and feature film projects under her production label Bark Like A Cat Films, which she launched in 2020 with the aim to support her own directing projects as well as daring films by fellow filmmakers. The features she is developing have been funded by Creative Europe MEDIA while all of the company’s projects have been funded by the Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture and developed through and awarded at major markets and workshops (Agora Crossroads, CocoPITCH, Sources2, MFI Script2Film, Torino Film Lab, Torino Short Film Market, Clermont Ferrand’s Euroconnection, Meetings on the bridge, Sofia Meetings, Midpoint, First Films First, Oxbelly, European Genre Forum, International Project Discovery Forum).