Los Angeles, CA
Project Started: 2026
Maria Petros, Producer, Director, Editor
Director's Statement
I've always been interested in the space between how a life looks from the outside and what it actually feels like to live inside it. Pick Your Line comes from that space.
I began losing my hair to alopecia when I was seven. For years, I believed it was temporary. At sixteen, that hope disappeared with a diagnosis that changed how I saw myself and the future I imagined. What followed was a profound mental health struggle that reshaped the course of my life.
This film isn't about overcoming that experience or leaving it behind. It's about acknowledging that it continues to shape who I am.
I started snowboarding at 34—not as a solution, but as something new to step into after years of simply surviving. It didn't erase the past. Instead, it gave me a place to be present, to learn, to fall, and to keep moving without judgment.
Pick Your Line is for anyone who has ever felt different in a world that seems to move forward without them. It’s for those who have lost hope, those still searching for it, and those who have found it again by choosing joy. I hope audiences leave with a little more compassion—for themselves and for others—and the reminder that everyone is carrying a story we cannot see.
Film & TV work
Maria Petros is an award-winning filmmaker, editor, and post-production professional based in Los Angeles. Born in Iran to Armenian parents, Maria immigrated to the United States at the age of nine without speaking English. Navigating a new country, language, and culture at a young age shaped her perspective on identity, belonging, and resilience—themes that continue to define her work as a storyteller.
With a career spanning documentary, unscripted, and narrative filmmaking, Maria has developed a reputation for crafting emotionally compelling stories that place character and authenticity at the center of the frame.
As an editor, Maria has contributed to acclaimed productions including Untold: The Testimony of Vince Young, The Stanford Prison Experiment: Truth Unlocked, Paul American, and Action, bringing years of experience shaping complex narratives across documentary and television. Her background in post-production has cultivated a cinematic storytelling style rooted in emotional nuance, thoughtful pacing, and a deep respect for lived experience.
Maria is also a writer and director whose award-winning narrative feature Ascension received festival recognition for its direction. Across her work, she is drawn to stories that explore identity, resilience, human connection, and the moments that quietly shape the course of our lives.
Pick Your Line marks Maria's documentary feature directorial debut. Inspired by her own experience living with alopecia, navigating mental health challenges, and ultimately finding connection through community, the film reflects her belief that the most personal stories often reveal our shared humanity. Through intimate, character-driven filmmaking, Maria seeks to create work that fosters empathy, sparks meaningful conversation, and reminds audiences that our differences are often the very things that connect us.
LISA BLOCH, Producer
Lisa Bloch is an accomplished executive producer, showrunner, and nonfiction television producer with extensive experience developing and producing unscripted series for major networks.
She has served as an executive producer on long-running series including Swamp People, as well as The Horn, To Catch a Smuggler, To Catch a Smuggler: Tropical Takedown, Pacific Warriors, Dead End Express, Louisiana Lockdown, and Swamp Mysteries with Troy Landry. Her credits span Discovery, History, A&E, TLC, MTV, and ABC, and her work has taken her from wildlife and adventure programming to character-driven series built around real people and high-stakes environments.
In 2015, Lisa joined Original Media as Vice President of Current Programming, bringing years of experience as a director, showrunner, and executive producer to the company’s growing nonfiction slate.
MARAH STRAUCH, Executive Producer
Marah Strauch is an Austrian-American filmmaker whose work fuses daring subject matter with a refined, poetic visual sensibility. Her films are known for their striking imagery, inventive structure, and their ability to reveal the emotional core of characters living in extraordinary circumstances.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied glass and experimental film, Strauch approaches nonfiction cinema with an artist's eye. The tactile, sculptural quality of her early work informs her filmmaking today: she builds documentaries like works of art, layering archival, reenactment, and vérité into immersive, cinematic experiences.
Her debut feature, Sunshine Superman (Toronto International Film Festival, CNN Films, Magnolia Pictures, Universal International), told the story of BASE-jumping pioneer Carl Boenish and was praised by IndieWire as "one of the best U.S. docs of the year." With breathtaking archival footage and bold visual storytelling, the film set a new bar for how adventure and subculture stories could be told on the big screen.
Across her work - whether in feature documentaries, festival shorts, or collaborations with brands like Adidas, ESPN, and Accenture - Strauch demonstrates a commitment to cinematic scale, emotional intimacy, and the belief that nonfiction stories deserve the same aesthetic ambition as fiction. Her films have screened at TIFF, Tribeca, Hot Docs, Outfest, and more, reaching audiences around the world and inspiring the next wave of boundary-pushing documentary.
RAFAEL BRITTO, Executive Producer
Raf Britto is an Emmy-winning Producer and Creative Director with over 20 years of experience crafting documentary and branded content. From long-form series to Cannes Award-winning campaigns, he has shaped hundreds of hours of character-driven storytelling, working with cultural figures like Magic Johnson, Novak Djokovic, Misty Copeland, and more.
In 2022, he was part of the development team and a producer on Welcome to Wrexham, which earned five Emmy wins, adding to his four Sports Emmy nominations. His credits also include Netflix’s Untold, Street Food, and The Playbook, along with projects for HBO, Vice, Amazon, and Apple.
Born and raised in Brazil and fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, Raf brings a global perspective to his work. He is also a music producer, composer, and classically trained musician, with original work featured across major platforms.
JAYME ROY, Director of Photography
Jayme Roy is a veteran documentary cinematographer whose career has taken him around the world for feature films, television, and long-form nonfiction. He shot three of Michael Moore’s films—Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story, and Where to Invade Next—as well as the documentaries Hood to Coast, Roseanne for President!, and The Stamp Thief. His television work includes projects for Discovery, National Geographic, PBS, and other major networks. Jayme grew up in a documentary filmmaking family and has spent his career immersed in the craft of observational filmmaking, developing a visual approach rooted in real people, unscripted moments, and intimate access.
KEVIN WESTENBARGER, Director of Alpine Photography
Kevin Westenbarger is a Mammoth Lakes–based cinematographer, photographer, and filmmaker whose career has been shaped by a lifelong connection to the mountains and the people who inhabit them. For more than two decades, he has documented the culture of snowsports with an intimate, observational style that captures both the exhilaration of riding and the quiet moments that define life beyond the lift. His work with the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team and a range of outdoor and mountain brands has earned him a reputation for creating cinematic imagery that is as authentic as it is visually striking.