Interview with Maria Soccor: “Being successful is being happy and doing what you love.”
Multi-award-winning film director, writer, producer, stage and film actress, dancer, and poet—these are just some of Maria Soccor’s roles. Known for her award-winning feature documentary, Lords of BSV, Maria Soccor has proved herself to be a passionate and accomplished artist displaying her versatility through film, theatre, and television.
From her childhood, Soccor was influenced by her father and mother’s example. As a child of an immigrant, Maria saw her mother’s struggles firsthand, navigating her way in a new country. It was her mother’s endurance and her father’s core values that inspired Soccor to pursue her wildest dreams. From an early age, she realized the importance of saving money, working hard, and always making bigger goals for herself.
In the eighties, Maria Soccor saw Tootsie, a movie that would be remembered as the first film she ever watched with her father who was an avid film-lover. This was just the beginning of her appreciation for the world of film.
One filmmaker she studied and appreciated when she was younger was Akira Kurosawa for his symbolic use of light and shadows throughout his films. More recently, Soccor’s been inspired by Japanese actress and filmmaker Kinouyo Tanaka for her groundbreaking social content for women. Some of her other favorite filmmakers include Kasi Lemmons, Ken Burns, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, and Sophia Coppola who have inspired her to take risks in her own work with different styles and forms of cinematography, storytelling, and direction.
Starting as a dancer and actress, Soccor shifted into the filmmaking world in her twenties after being diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia, causing a problem with the rate of her heartbeat. After being unsure how this would affect her career, she backed away from dance and the stage and took on more film and television roles along with filmmaking. After receiving a cardiac ablation in 2018, she is now back to performing in addition to her filmmaking career.
“It’s great as a filmmaker to be able to write content and stylize it yourself. [I get to] call the shots and really build a beautiful picture. That’s what I want to do: I want to tell great stories that touch you in here [the heart], about people, real people,” Soccor said in our interview.
As a producer, director, and writer, Maria Soccor has worked on many titles including shorts like Play House, Cinemacoma, Loveseat Soundstage, Prophet in E minor, and Kicks in addition to her documentary Lords of BSV and many others currently in production, like feature documentaries 2 B Me, The Boys of 742, Sybil, Tillie, Gentrify This!, and Freestyle Music: The Legacy.
When I asked Soccor why she was inspired to pursue film she said, “Because I have an acting background, I was always in front of the camera, and as I got older, I realized the possibility of becoming a filmmaker, [creating] socially relevant content for women and ordinary people. Just telling great stories really brought me to learning lenses and learning how to become a filmmaker, where I am still a student of it all. I have a sincere and faithful passion for film on all levels.”
In addition to her love for film, Maria Soccor talked about her love for people. One of her favorite parts of filmmaking, especially with her documentaries, is how she can connect with different people and their cultures and lifestyles. In one of her films, Lords of BSV, she was able to work with amazing dancers and capture their inspiring stories. The purpose of this film was to tell a positive story about Brukup dancers in Brooklyn, New York, and give them a voice through her award-winning documentary.
“The best experience when you go into a project is that you get to know people, you become challenged, and you learn how to cope with the obstacles. I really love working with people, and I think this is also why I love my industry—this is all I do. But that is the best thing: there’s nothing better than meeting people and completing a project from beginning to end. I love doing projects with people.”
In our interview, Soccor also talked about one of her most rewarding accomplishments: winning Best Director of a Feature Documentary for Lord of BSV in 2015 at the Madrid International Film Festival. Despite being in the film industry for over twenty years, Soccor was shocked by the outcome of her feature documentary. She remembers being excited about her nominations but wasn’t expecting to win Best Director of a Feature Documentary, especially since she was up against major documentarians. She learned through this film that her use of original footage instead of archival footage was a defining part of her filmmaking style.
She realized that her style is what set her apart and helped her win many more awards for Lords of BSV: “It was very special to me because it was the beginning of something that helped shape me as a filmmaker, because of the style. I couldn’t figure it out. I have an ensemble cast, and it’s really big. But that’s what I like to do, and those are the stories I like to tell. It’s about a group of people or a thing that brings a group of people together.”
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