Marleen Gorris (born 9 December 1948) is a Dutch writer and director. Gorris is known as an outspoken feminist and supporter of gay and lesbian issues which is reflected in much of her work. Her film, Antonia's Line, won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1995 making her first woman to do so in this category. She has won 2 Golden Calf awards and received numerous other nominations, including one nomination for BAFTA Awards. Early life Marleen Gorris was born on 9 December 1948 in Roermond in the Netherlands. She was born to Protestant, working-class parents in the Catholic southern part of the Netherlands. Gorris studied drama at home and abroad. She studied drama at the University of Amsterdam and has an MA in Drama from the University of Birmingham, England. She began working as a filmmaker with almost no previous experience in the cinema and made an auspicious writing and directorial debut in 1982 with A Question of Silence. The Dutch government provided the funding to finance the project. Career It was not until the age of 30 that Gorris began writing scripts. She took her first effort to the Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, hoping to interest her in directing it. Akerman, however, told Gorris that she must make the film herself. The result, A Question of Silence (1982), caused considerable international controversy telling a story through the eyes of a female psychiatrist whose job it was to question three women who had spontaneously murdered a man for the sole reason of him being a man. Some interpreted the film's feminist message to be about pent up "female rage" and dissatisfaction with a patriarchal system that boiled over the surface while other claimed it went too far and couldn't be taken seriously. The film was well received for its quality but still shocked many who watched it for its lack of condemnation of the murderers. At the Netherlands' Film Festival in 1982 she was awarded the Golden Calf for Best Feature Film for A Question of Silence, a feat she would repeat in 1995 winning Best Direction for her well known film Antonia's Line. Soon after the success of her first film, Gorris released her second: Broken Mirrors (1984). The film hold similarities to A Question of Silence both in production and in theme though many found Broken Mirrors less impactful. Large portions of the cast and