Marly Hernández Cortés

At Johns Hopkins, Marly Hernández Cortés is the Assistant Program Director and a lecturer for the MA in Film and Media program.  

Hernández Cortés is a narrative film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and actor. Originally from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, she received a Bachelor of Science in business administration, with a focus in marketing and entrepreneurship, from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. She studied acting at Circle in the Square and HB Studios in New York City. From acting she fell in love with directing and physical production and went on to receive her MFA in directing and film production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts after having received an MA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, with a focus on marketing, distribution, and financing strategies within independent cinema.  

Most recently, Hernández Cortés received a Panavision Production Grant for her first feature film that she co-directed and co-produced. In 2020 and 2021, she became a Saul Zaentz Innovation Film Fellow and Production Grant recipient at Johns Hopkins. In 2021 she received a Mayor’s Individual Artist Award from the Creative Baltimore Fund on behalf of the Mayor and the City of Baltimore. She is the recipient of a British Academy of Film and Television Arts scholarship, National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts grant/scholarship, and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant. Her thesis film “Mala” was made with the support of a Panavision Production Grant and received an award grant from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, having its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival.  

When not creating films or teaching, she loves to sew and garden.