Francesca Brice-Martin is an LA-based filmmaker originally from Burkina Faso. Her growing filmography of award-winning shorts has made her a name to watch as she continues to grab audiences with taut scripts and intimate direction. Her films are deeply personal, reaching into the depths of the characters to find how they relate to one another.
A Brief Biography of Francesca Brice-Martin
Born in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Brice-Martin’s passion for arts began when she started building miniature paper sets for films she dreamed of making. At 11, her family gave her a camera. Already, she was discovering the excitement of capturing the world on video.
When she was 12, a family friend brought her into auditions for roles on television, and that started her down the road to acting. She slowly discovered the love for writing at age 15 and had the opportunity to work behind the camera in different projects. She then knew this would be her path in life.
Due to the small size of Burkina Faso’s filmmaking industry, Brice-Martin chose a career in medicine. This led to more than a 10-year stint with only minimal contact with the industry. She continued to write and get to film sets as often as she could, but film could not be her main focus. In 2015, Francesca made her first short film as a director and in 2019 she flew across the world in Los Angeles to earn her Masters of Fine Arts in film and video production at the New York Film Academy (Burbank). The next year, the Covid pandemic pushed the program online.
Despite that major setback, Brice-Martin managed to continue to piece together a filmography, one that is already showing major promises. Her list of shorts include films with scripts that dive into human relationships, whether this is showing the vulnerability people experience inside of romance or the way they handle loss.
Francesca Brice-Martin, Brian Loud and Edgar Nunley on the filming of I am an Addict. © Zachary Youmans
The Films of Francesca Brice-Martin
Brice-Martin has produced, directed and written several shorts and worked in various capacities on many other projects. Her three most recent films are building her reputation as a director on the rise.
In her 2021 short film “Rats in the House,” Brice-Martin combines a cheating husband, an angry mistress, an unsuspecting wife, and a Thanksgiving dinner. As the director herself says, “If there are two or more people in a story, then there are two or more perspectives to the story. And if the perspectives don’t line up, serious consequences may occur.”
In 2023, she completed her short film “Forgiveness,” which she shot in 2019. This moody meditation on grief expanded her focus. While “Rats In The House” contained a clear love of cinema and a capacity for dramatic heights, this short moved in a much more emotionally grounded direction.
Most recently, Brice-Martin completed “The Perfect Size.” In what is essentially a chamber play, a couple deals with the issues of male confidence, the vulnerabilities we open ourselves up to in romance, and the way body image can exist as a deep wound. She manages to deftly handle these major topics within the short runtime, all while making the piece a delightful comedy with a strong heart at its core.
The Future of Brice-Martin’s Filmmaking
Brice-Martin’s short films are slowly gaining viewership and widespread critical approval. Along with that growth has come a steady stream of awards and nominations. Among these, “The Perfect Size” has already won nine awards from festivals around the world — including Best Comedy, Best Actor and Best duo at the Top shorts film festival and Best Comedy/Dramedy Short at the London Independent Film Awards. This is after her successful short “Rats in the House” took home many awards and nominations, as did “Forgiveness.”
Across these short films, Brice-Martin is marking out her territory as a director and producer focused on moving portraits of complex humans. She can use humor to her advantage, amping up the cinematic absurdity of moments to add charm and lightness — as she does for great comedic effect in “The Perfect Size.” But she also manages to strike tones of despair and contemplation, as she does in “Forgiveness.”
She does all this while also mastering the art of cinema as a one-woman production studio — capable in virtually every task behind and in front of the camera. This leads to productions that feel unified, with a singular vision the audience can be completely absorbed by.
For that reason, those in the know are eagerly awaiting her upcoming short film, with details to be released soon.
There is no doubt that these award-winning shorts will lead to larger projects. Audiences and critics alike are waiting to see what she will do with a full-length feature. In the meantime, you can watch trailers for her films on her YouTube channel and follow her career on Instagram. — Jonathan Clark.
