Born in Michoacán, Mexico and raised in Richmond, California, Maria Victoria Ponce is a San Francisco Bay Area film writer and director. Ponce’s work navigates the complexities in the routine lives within poor and working-class neighborhoods: themes of immigration, sexuality, and coming of age tend to recur. Through film, she aims to highlight the breadth and depth of the Latinx experience in the Bay Area. Having struggled with her own identity, she strives to find its beauty and to bask in its uniqueness, while always seeking truth in characters and subjects. She channels strength and storytelling from her Indigenous grandmother and great-grandmother, both curanderas.

Ponce is a fellow at Cine Qua Non Lab, NALIP Latino Media Market, and Latino Screenwriting Project and an artist resident at SFFILM FilmHouse. She was a finalist for Tribeca/AT&T Untold Stories 2019 and has received grants from PBS's The Latino Experience and The Berkeley Film Foundation. Her films have played at Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia, Aesthetica Shorts Film Festival, WIF Shorts Night, Urbanworld, Chicago International Children's Film Festival, Femme Frontera, San Diego Latino Film Festival, CineFestival San Antonio, Boston International Latino Film Festival, Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, and HBO/New York International Latino Film Festival.