Originally from New York, Marisa Pearl has spent the past several years living in California and working in the film industry. She first joined the visual effects production team at Industrial Light and Magic in Marin County and then moved south to work at Miramax Films in Los Angeles. Through her development and marketing responsibilities there, she gained a unique perspective on the filmmaking process and was inspired to pursue her own documentary projects. She graduated from Brown with a BA in French Semiotics.

Purify
digital video
25:17 min.

Purify is a half hour documentary that takes viewers behind the barbed wire fences of the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility where the state of California houses its most serious juvenile offenders. The story focuses on three female wards and their attempts to come to terms with their pasts through Native American healing rituals.

About Faces
16mm, color film
7 min.

Explores the subtle ways faces help us to communicate. It focuses on two men: one has a neurological disorder that prevents him from distinguishing faces; the other is a psychologist who believes faces are windows into our hidden emotions.

Grease
Co-directed by Marisa Pearl and Carla Gutierrez
digital video
7:30 min.

Grease explores our society's dependency on gasoline and the choices we have as average consumers. The film profiles a group of people in Sebastopol, California who have converted their diesel cars to run on vegetable oil. Grease also examines the shortcomings of the auto industry to offer fuel-efficient cars.

Something Borrowed
16mm, black and white film
4 min.

Something Borrowed examines the traditions and narratives common to those who have participated in a wedding in the role of bride or groom.