Born in Belgrade, Marijana Verhoef is a Berlin based writer and director. After graduating in Dramaturgy and Creative Writing at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Verhoef moved to Berlin. From 2017/2018 on Verhoef is studying directing studies at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin.
Her first theater play AMSTERDAM was directed by Nurkan Erpulat and performed at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in 2014. As a screenwriter, Verhoef debuted with the feature THE VOICE, which she wrote together with director Ognjen Svilicic. THE VOICE had a world premiere at Busan International Film Festival in 2019. In the same year Verhoef wrote and directed the suspense short film BODY, produced by Elena Zurbuch and Elisabeth Köller, which was presented at Sitges, Hof, Trieste, Interfilm Berlin and Max Ophüls in 2020 and 2021. BODY was awarded with the predicate "Especially Valuable" by Deutsche Film- und Medienbewertung. In 2022 Verhoef was commissioned to direct for ZDFneo’s new season of DOPPELHAUSHÄLFTE, the successful sitcom by Dennis Schanz and Christoph Mushayija Rath, produced by ICONOCLAST Films Germany.
Verhoef is an alumna of TorinoFilmLab LabSeries, MIDPOINT TV Launch Program and Sarajevo Film Festival’s Cinelink Drama. She accomplished her Story Editing traineeship at TorinoFilmLab’s program for feature screenplay development under the mentorship of Franz Rodenkirchen. As a story editor, Verhoef has collaborated with the International Short Film Festival Berlin INTERFILM since 2016.