Marijana Verhoef is a Serbian-Croatian writer and director based in Berlin. Born in Belgrade, she studied Dramaturgy and Creative Writing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts before moving to Germany to study Directing at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb). Her background in both writing and directing informs a versatile body of work that ranges from mystery and suspense to comedy and character-driven drama.

Her first play, Amsterdam, was directed by Nurkan Erpulat and premiered at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in 2014. She made her screenwriting debut with The Voice (dir. Ognjen Sviličić), which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2019. The same year, she directed her short film Leib, which screened at major genre and film festivals including Sitges, Hof, Trieste and Max Ophüls Preis, and received the FBW rating “particularly valuable”.

Marijana’s television career quickly gained momentum through her work on the acclaimed ZDFneo comedy Doppelhaushälfte, where she joined the directing team for Seasons 2 and 3. She subsequently directed the final five episodes of the ZDF series Pumpen and went on to helm the ZDFneo series High Stakes, which celebrated its world premiere at Filmfest München in 2025. Most recently, she directed an episode of Tatort Schwarzwald for SWR.

An alumna of TorinoFilmLab, MIDPOINT TV Launch and Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Drama programme, Marijana works fluently across German, English, Dutch, Serbian and Croatian. She is currently preparing a new ZDF high-end drama series scheduled to shoot in autumn 2026.