Marny Eng and EJ Foerster co-directed Gringa, which had its world premiere at our 2022 Festival and won the Audience Award!

Filmmaker Bios

E.J. Foerster has been around the industry for a long time – serving as Second Unit Director for nearly 30 years on films such as The Greatest Showman, The Twilight Saga, Deep Impact, and True Lies. Gringa is his debut feature as a director. 

Marny Eng is a Canadian filmmaker who has worked as a stunt coordinator and stuntwoman for over 30 years. As a stunt double, she has worked with a number of Hollywood stars including Lucy Liu, Christina Ricci, Kristin Kreuk and Rachael Leigh Cook. Her work as a stunt coordinator can be seen in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Last Mimzy, and She’s the Man among others. Gringa is her debut feature as a director. 

Gringa was created over the course of the pandemic, so Foerster and Eng faced more challenges than most directors on their debut film. In a recent video interview, Foerster noted, “…during that whole COVID portion of time when we were all locked down, we were able to adjust and improvise and actually do this entire post through Zoom. We were recording in Nashville but recording strings in Iceland. It was really crazy and wild. And you really found that there’s always a solution to solve a problem under the worst of conditions. So we’re hoping that a film like this, which is a little different – because it’s a feel-good film and dysfunction is not the key element in the film – I hope that that translation will help get people to see it. Because I think it makes people feel good.”
Gringa is streaming now on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and more.