Marily Woodhouse
- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Marily Woodhouse is directing her first film "Clearcut Nation" later in
life, although in some respects, it is her life coming full circle.
Born in San Francisco in 1956, she made her television debut in 1960 on
the news when she graduated from the first integrated preschool in the
Bay Area. (Preschools were new then too, along with anti-segregation
laws.) She began modern ballet and art classes at Younghaven Studios in
San Francisco as a child. By the time she was 10 years old she had
begun to write plays, which she would costume and direct and round up
other neighborhood children to act in. Later, in junior high school in
San Mateo, her drama teacher staged one of Marily's plays with the 7th
grade class. At San Mateo High School, Marily took drama, choir, and
dance classes and appeared in both musical and dramatic productions.
Upon graduation, she moved to Los Angeles where she did some extra work
and appeared in a revival of "Stage Door" at the Greenhouse Theatre in
Pasadena, although more of her time was spent waitressing. In her
mid-20s, she married and moved back to northern California. She began
riding in horse endurance races and rode thousands of miles over the
western states. After moving to a small rural area in the late '80s,
she became involved in the Theatre Department of Shasta College where
she acted, danced, and sang in diverse plays including "Six Characters
in Search of an Author", "Don Juan", "As You Like It", and "Rikki Tiki
Tavi" as well as writing scripts, choreographing, costuming shows, and
working on set construction. By 2005, Marily began seeing drastic
changes in the rural area she had lived in for many years. The mainly
uninhabited, forested land began being clearcut by the wealthy, giant
timber company that had taken over the land in the late '90s. Unable to
stand idly by without fighting the irreparable destruction, she became
an activist. She enlarged skills from other parts of her life, such as
writing, photography, research, and mapping, to document what was
occurring in the world around her. And this led to making her first
documentary.