Marilena Marchetti is a jeweler, documentary filmmaker, and teaching artist who loves working at the intersection of art, storytelling, and social impact. After years of informally studying silversmithing, Marilena completed the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Jewelry Design program in NYC, winning first place in the Best Art Jewelry category of the Graduate Student Exhibition in 2024. That same year, she was thrilled to receive a scholarship to attend The Jewelry Symposium and to be selected as a sponsored mentee of The Plumb Club at the annual JCK convention in Las Vegas. Her jewelry was featured in New York City Jewelry Week 2024 in the Society of North American Goldsmiths’ exhibition.

Marilena’s documentary work has featured at film festivals in New York City, Los Angeles, and internationally, as well as online. Her documentary Liquid Handcuffs: A Documentary to Free Methadone received an impact grant from the Open Society Foundations. She went on to co-direct and co-produce its follow-up, Swallow THIS: A Documentary to Free Methadone, touring the film across the United States and Canada. Her short documentary pieces have also appeared on CityLimits.org and Filter.org. She’s currently working on a feature film about youth organizing for Latino Public Broadcasting. 

Before—and alongside—her filmmaking career, Marilena spent over a decade working as an occupational therapist with children in Special Education. She holds a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2016, driven by her belief that children with disabilities deserve meaningful access to the arts, she founded the Film Festival From MARS (Media Art by Students in Special Education), which debuted at Lincoln Center in New York City and will announce a new home in 2026. A passionate advocate for children and youth with disabilities, Marilena has received multiple grants from the Citizens Committee for New York City and the NYC Departments of Cultural Affairs and Sanitation. Today, she trains therapists and educators in using filmmaking as a therapeutic tool and works as a teaching artist with high school students across New York City.