DIRECTOR BIO
Mary is a High School History Teacher and mother of 3 girls. She began her creative collaboration with Hine's Park Productions in 2010.
Today, she has concentrated her creative efforts working alongside her husband, Carlos J. Benitez, to produce short films for Sexy Pineapples Production. Her credits include: Cookies N Screams, Luna's Fear, Broken Beloved and most recently, The PhotoGraph.

DIRECTOR STATEMENT
The inspiration for ‘The PhotoGraph’ came from various places. The first place being a desire to continue the work with my children, seeing as they pulled off stellar performances in ‘Luna’s Fear’ at the ages of 5 and 6. The pandemic brought us closer together creatively. We were able to put together a lycanthropic story (65 minutes duration) about family love & togetherness despite being challenged by evil forces. This project won 39 film festivals both domestically and internationally. Therefore, the desire to go deeper into those woods remained at the surface.
In June 2023, my husband was asked to produce a short story that employed ‘intentional use of sound’ in a creative challenge, I was then asked to participate in this endeavor. Fortunately, I was coming off having discovered an a capella version of the ‘Ding Dong’ song covered by Lauren Palley. It had a haunting melody with no use of instrumentation and yet it was captivating. I convinced my husband that we should orbit familiar grounds & decided to go with a supernatural storyline.
I’ve always liked stories that involve different time periods & the mid to early 19th century has always been a gothic fascination for me. The penny dreadfuls of late 19th century England and American writers like Edgar Allan Poe came to mind as I suggested a story based on a picture of a long, bygone era that is also a portal for transference. In this story, the portal would be enveloped with a sinister plot.
The PhotoGraph visual portmanteau of 19th century horror, a haunting acapella song and my husband’s continued interest in diving into creepy & scary stories.